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<p>Been there, done that. <br>
</p>
<p>I know relying on a given setup to get work done you run a high
risk of breaking something should you upgrade. I myself just
upgraded from Mojave to Catalina (latest natively supported), for
basically the same reason as yours, and it didn't went smoothly.
Had to reformat everything and start over from scratch before
restoring the latest Time Machine backup. In the process, Time
Machine broke the sparsebundle I used as a source. Didn't lose any
data, but lost access to the former snapshots. Not sure if because
of sparsbundle inherent fragility or one of my workarounds I used
over the years and can't remember.</p>
<p><i>Depending on your workflow</i>, if your internal SSD storage
is large enough you could simply make a <b>dual-boot</b> with a
more recent OS and fall back to Mojave should something break in
an unacceptable way. Notably, any 32-bit app you rely on and don't
have an alternative for (iWeb). Check which ones are still 32-bit.
The downside is, you'll have to find a way to have the relevant
documents on both installs. Use an independent Time Machine target
for both installs, don't try to save some cash cramming everything
into the same drive. Of course even if your storage is soldered
in, you should still be able to make a working clone as, AFAIK,
Macs can still boot off an external HDD. Just don't choose any
cheap spinning rust; APFS performance is rather bad on anything
else than SSD.<br>
</p>
<p>Or you could always try to make a <b>virtual machine</b> out of
Mojave and reinstall those apps you can't do without. Beware
though, some post-High Sierra Mac OS X versions don't behave that
well when virtualized and may run unacceptably slow.</p>
<p>Currently I have both for my 2012-era MBP (pre-Retina, maxed-out
specs): A virtualized Mac OS X for 32-bit-only apps, and a second
bootable internal partition using OCLP to boot Monterey. Going
empirical, since Monterey runs pretty well on the latest,
strongest 2015 MBA which only features an Intel HD 6000 graphics,
I assumed the same OS would be OK on an Intel HD 4000 graphics
since there isn't too wide a gap between them. Some Apple-imposed
limitations are just here for profitability reasons. Even if OCLP
claims to fully support Sequoia on this hardware, I won't try to
be too ambitious as some functions inevitably break (anything that
relies on Metal, basically) and the general experience will be
sluggish.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if those specialized software of yours don't
run that reliably on Ubuntu, I'd start checking there what the
issue may be, and what is the recommended setup. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 29/09/2024 13:12, Masha
Vecherkovskaya wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:etPan.66f98a94.1c31b9de.110f1@airmail.rr">
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<div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; ; ">Thank
you very much for your thoughts. The computer is a 15 inch 2019
MacBook Pro, and it’s intel based wich makes me want to hold to
it for as long as I can. I’m dreading the day I have to upgrade.
Not upgraiding is now impacting daily tasks. It has so much
stuff installed and working, so many workarounds around other
workarounds. It will take ages to rebuild all of that. Some of
the newer versions of the bioinformatics tools I use seem to be
less reliable, at least on my workstation which runs Ubuntu. I
still use iWeb to run website for students, and I know it can be
done in another way, but at the moment it takes me just a couple
of minuets to update the info for them. I used to uprade one OS
behind current, waiting for stuff to settle. It wold have been
easier to clone hard drive and keep it as a working copy in case
everything falls apart, but it’s soldered in, so I’ll have to
rely on time machine and hope everything goes well. </div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; ; "><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; ; ">Thank
you. </div>
<br>
<br>
<p class="airmail_on">On 29 September 2024 at 12:27:42, Fabien
Auréjac (<a href="mailto:fabien.aurejac@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">fabien.aurejac@gmail.com</a>)
wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite" class="clean_bq"><span>
<div>
<div>
<p><font size="2">Added to what said Richard,</font></p>
<p><font size="2">you can also with <a
href="https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/"
moz-do-not-send="true">OpenCore Legacy Patcher</a>
upgrade to some OS that is not officially supported by
your computer, in the case it's an old mac.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Provided the computer is strong enough
to handle the new OS, it may give a better lifetime...</font></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 29/09/2024 à 03:34,
Richard L. Hamilton a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:19B05BCC-D68E-4EBA-8E52-394137EB2E64@smart.net">
<div class="">The newest your hardware can handle,
unless you have apps that require 32-bit support (for
which Mojave is the last OS version that has it) or
that for some other reason will break in a newer OS.
Don't be more than two or three behind (I think it's
really years, somewhere in the 3 to 5 range) if you
want at least security updates. (don't expect much
other updates for OS versions near the old end of what
still gets security updates)</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Exception: if you want less problems with
MacPorts and don't want to be part of solving problems
much, wait a few months on Sequoia; don't go later
than Sonoma yet. The first few months of any new OS
major version can have more pain for apps and software
from anywhere, esp. open source software with lots of
dependencies and mostly or totally unpaid volunteer
support.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">For software that is neither MacPorts nor
Mac App Store, <a href="https://roaringapps.com/apps"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" moz-do-not-send="true">https://roaringapps.com/apps</a> may
provide some indication (if someone has reported!
there are plenty of unknowns) whether listed apps will
work on a given OS version. There may be other such
sites, but that's the one I know about.</div>
<br class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Sep 28, 2024, at 21:13, Masha
Vecherkovskaya <<a
href="mailto:mashavecher@gmail.com"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
moz-do-not-send="true">mashavecher@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"
class="">Hi all.</div>
<div
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"
class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"
class="">I’ve been putting off upgading from
Mojave for as long as I could. But it seems
inevitable at some near point. Which OS would
you reccomend? </div>
<div
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"
class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"
class="">Thank you. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br class="">
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</span></blockquote>
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src="https://appserviceng-dot-mystic-tempo-847.appspot.com/rr/ma2/3/AwGYRtdPBwEB_6dUcBmeJ9q7BtS6GVGkv_2W2L5LPpBPCelby_OlrhTlyQpVUDXaKme6Z0wwYQnSoaAgBi3gt5_7HChlwWur3qhMDBrHOqw8pUGNVNhbQn3Bf6_GA-NcvLRlCnwQ_FVLB6Hj2XNll-hrS7A7KT2VqlSW5T6SS4XmZbBTpfBhodzhbmjHdeGkY-xI5Zhc1TM5DVR4Fd2eYKgas-3r_ZMzf4yCwxRWO_uDqIxDomE_O_dHVTKW6owIE3rgmfbWhkLCZeqImFxGEb5_o71PMO7kj9ATsbJZQ1mO8OOdZF-Ja0tGjvxyMYU5k8OEVKFLSsfVsa01gJQFSjs8DrTCR-pGN4dljkrcSInnIA=="
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</blockquote>
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