High Sierra and MacPorts

[Gestos at ftp83plus.net]

Lets use real facts as opposed to your subjective feelings...
> 
> https://www.futuremark.com/pressreleases/is-it-true-that-iphones-get-slower-over-time
> 
> Apple does NOT intentional make their own older devices run slower than they otherwise could. That is nonsense conspiracies. What they do do is release new technicalities with each OS release that are better optimised for the newer hardware. Apple has never been backwards in that regard. But that is quite different to intentional making their devices perform worse.

Apple doesn't have a stellar record when it comes to backwards-compatibility, either. With the accelerated rate of Mac OS X releases, it is common for existing workflows and software to break unexpectedly. The recent version of Disk Utility is more difficult to use. The identical icons for both USB, FireWire drives and disk images, dots instead of highlight for colour tagging makes using it harder than it used to be.

Last example I had in mind is the latest iTunes where the App Store has been removed, that require the user to have a working iOS 10 device with enough free memory for updates. That indirectly excludes the common 8GB iPhone 5c, where iOS leaves only about 5GB. All because of one software upgrade on MacOSX.

But your hypothesis of added functionality (that can't be turned off, otherwise it wouldn't be so much of an issue) does hold water.

Against my own suggestion, this current iPhone 5c didn't show much of a performance downgrade when I was forced to update it from iOS 8 to 9. But I have yet to put iOS 11 since it is impossible to downgrade should it fail to deliver.

> 
>> These symptoms raise more than one hypothesis:
>> 1- Is FF simply better written on Windows 7 than on Snow Leopard than on El Capitan?
> 
> Ask Mozilla.
> 
>> 2- Is Snow Leopard simply better than El Capitan at managing resources, especially when scarce?
> 
> Unlikely.

Still, I do see more free memory, proportionally, on Snow leopard than I do on 10.11.6, and rather high memory pressure. Would the "compressed
Memory" feature actually use more CPU than the previous system?

> 
>> 4- more specifically, would fan speed be set based on the CPU load /trend/, rather than actual temperature? Assuming "preventive cooling" to be more efficient on recent laptops that have less air flow due to thinness, while having cooler, more efficient CPUs).
> 
> No idea. The fans on my devices have always turned on when its under load, and getting hot, and turned off afterwards. Nothing more complicated than that.

Maybe the newer Mac OS X were written with those recent laptop models in mind where the fan can be turned off completely? Forgetting older models have a constantly running fan?

In fact, I looked for and could never find a definitive answer what was the normal temperature range for a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz. The maximum operating temperature is set at 105C by Intel, but, in absence of a more precise measure, I "feel" it throttling far below, around 75C as the computer becomes unbearably sluggish, though it can shoot over 100C  after a cold boot when applications automatically restart.

There aren't much MacBook5,2 still in use that I could compare mine to.

> 
>> 5- is the GM version of 10.11 actually different from the regular version?
> 
> Of course it is. 10.11 has a number of minor updates size the first release...

My mistake, it runs 10.11.6, not 10.11.0 :)

> 
>> 6- has Apple actually set a lower safe temperature for its MacBook5,2 than it did for the MacBookPro8,1, increasing fan speed starting at an unrealistically low 59C rather than 70C (idle temp is about 55C on both)
> 
> For sure the thermal limits vary by device. I tend to assume Apple knows what it is doing in this regard...
> 
> Chris