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Mac mini 2009 on 10.6.8 - what are my upgrade options

As the title say, what can I upgrade my old Mac mini to as regards to software? I have looked at so many websites telling me this that and everything else, so please help me.


thanks


Micron

Posted on May 7, 2020 2:07 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 7, 2020 2:17 PM

Back up your data, check your applications for compatibility, and download El Capitan.


(180760)

9 replies

May 7, 2020 2:21 PM in response to Niel

Hi Thank you for your reply, I have tried that, it will download, but when I go to open the pgk file, the installer app just bounces up and down a few times at the bottom of the screen, then when I look it says the app is not responding? The El Capitan app never loads in the applications folder?

Any ideas why?

May 7, 2020 10:48 PM in response to Micron64

I recently installed El Capitan on VMware. As an old habit I first tried to download El Capitan from the App Store's Purchased tab when running OS X 10.6.8 Server VM but it has been removed from there for some reason. So I downloaded the .pkg version. It opened OK in Mojave VM (VM bypasses the system check. I also have an old Mac mini 2009 but I did it this way) and the "real" installer was put in the Applications folder and I could use that to install OS X 10.11 from scratch. I didn't try the .pkg in OS X 10.6.8.


Have you tried to launch the .pkg in safe-mode?

May 9, 2020 1:58 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Hi thanks for your reply, so I tried safe mode, and I got further, it ran a test on my hardware, and now tells me that I don't have the minimum requirements, my processor is 1.5 ghz intel Cire Solo, with 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, but it's telling me that I need one of the following Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or Xeon processor


anyone any ideas of what I can do next please?

May 9, 2020 3:46 AM in response to Micron64

I'd leave it like that. OS X 10.6 was a great system because it still allowed old PowerPC applications run in Rosetta emulation. I still occasionally use the OS X 10.6.8 server version via VMware fusion in Mojave/Catalina to run MT-NewsWatcher 3.5.3b3.


I recently tried to decide which other old OS X version would be the best to run other old 32-bit apps in Catalina via VMware Fusion. OS X 10.6 can run Adobe Photoshop CS6, QuickTime Player Pro 7 and MPEG Streamclip. But Adobe Lightroom 6.14 needs at least OS X 10.10-10.11 so I installed OS X 10.11 VM to test whether that is enough for my occasional use. I considered also OS X 10.14 for this task but MPEG Streamclip is not fully compatible with it and Mojave VM has some GUI artifacts because AFAIK all virtual machines lack hardware acceleration drivers (so for example the Finder and Safari tabs have the same artifacts you get when running Mojave in safe mode on a real Mac).

Mac mini 2009 on 10.6.8 - what are my upgrade options

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