A very expensive brick

[Dave2002]

So.....I shall put it back in its box and continue to use my old iMac until I have a spare month to research, debug, work out how to get my files over.

No ..... You've got this far, keep going.

I've had a bit of a Epiphany. I realised that I've not listened to any music on the Mac for well over three years! All my listening is streamed or I will put on a CD. So the music library can stay where it is or even be deleted. Photos ? I've not looked at my Photos album also for well over three years. But they're important and so I may copy the library over. Probably not. I'm keeping my old iMac and so they can stay there. Ditto any movies.

Mail...time for a major clean-out/archive. Import what's left. Documents...can stay on the old iMac until I need to use them...then I can copy them over.

A lot of my programs are 32 bit and so IIRC won't run on Catalina anyway. A lot I have never used for years and years. No point in copying them over. I can't even remember what half of them do!

How much memory and backing store have you got on the two machines? You can probably back most of the old machine off to a fairly cheap hard drive or SSD, then use that to load anything you want back up onto the new one. It does depend on the relative storage sizes, though.

If you hadn't managed to get this far I would have suggested installing either High Sierra or Mojave, which can still handle most of the 32 bit files and applications, but that doesn't solve or prevent the issues reappearing sooner rather than later. If you wanted to you could probably work out a way (could be slow) of using your old machine remotely. I have done this in the past, though it's only worth it if you really need to access data or applications on the older machine. If your local network is fairly fast, which I suspect from what you've written it is, then that is an option, and you can also use the network to transfer files across if you discover that they will work/run on the new one.

I had thought of downgrading my laptop back to one of the earlier MacOS versions - but it seems to me to be a big faff. At this stage I probably wish I hadn't moved "upwards", but it's too late now, so attempting to revert would cause me more grief over all than living with it. This is nevertheless a warning to anyone else - try to get to High Sierra first without progressing further, then re-evaluate. AFAIK Mojave is the last version which might be reasonably compatible with older software. Some of Apple's own software probably works better on Catalina - for example Logic Pro X - and the latest version won't work on earlier systems, but OTOH the earlier versions were not too bad. Depends what one wants to do - getting the right balance between applications which work on different levels of the OS. There are other ways round - using multiple boot startup drives or virtual systems - but probably most of us would find it easier to have one system which works reasonably well for most situations.

Some of the older 32 bit programs might have newer versions, or updates for 64 bit machines, so could be worth going through them systematically trying to work out which ones to keep, which ones to update, and which ones to forget about.

[Rjw]

I bought a new ipad, then I sent it bsck because everything seemed to be too much of a bother.

Old age?

[Bryn]

I bought a new ipad, then I sent it bsck because everything seemed to be too much of a bother.

Old age?

Getting music on and off those nasty toys is a right pain compared with most other such devices. I had to get one due to Zoom's Bluetooth remote control dongle only working with Apple toys. That's basically all it gets used for.

[Dave2002]

I’m partly in agreement with you, though I do use my iPad Pro most days. What amazes me is that the iPhone, on which the tablet is largely based, is a far more profitable product than Apple’s other hardware and software units. To me the iPhone software is poorly designed, but obviously I’m wrong as so many people seem to like the phones, and are prepared to pay for them. What kind of mind thought up the “file system” - I can’t imagine!

[Anastasius]

This article suggests the whole process might be a lot easier than some folk think.

Various steps to follow but an ethernet cable should not be necessary.

No, Migration Assistant does NOT work ...especially if your Macs are too far apart in either age or s/w.

[Anastasius]

I'm actually not that bothered about 32-bit programs as I don't really use my Mac for anything exotic. OK...SketchUp..and I'm still using a very old version, simply because I'm used to it, it works for me and so why should I waste time getting to grips with the newer version.

Where I am currently struggling is even with the basics like setting up my Mail accounts. I've done a load of Googling but found that most hits either don't tell you which version of s/w they are using and/or when they were posted. I've tried setting up the account from scratch using the same login details that I have in Keyfile access. "Unrecognised username or password". A Google hit tells me to 'copy over my com.apple.mail.plist' and yet when I look at it, it bears zero resemblance to my mail address.

Catalina is a whole new world....even the disk format has changed ....why ? They now have the drive partitioned into Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD data..or somesuch. Again, why ? TBH I'm really going off Apple. It's currently back in its box and TBH I think I'm going to sell the damn thing.

[Dave2002]

TBH I'm really going off Apple. It's currently back in its box and TBH I think I'm going to sell the damn thing.

I can sympathise with that view, but what's the alternative? It may not be good, but other possibilities might be worse.

I was hoping you would get it working, and could tell us all that it really was a high performance machine and that you had a model which didn't actually cost both your arms and legs. It seems that may be unlikely.

I want to stick with Apple for the moment because of some software which I use most of the time, but there is other software which I could run happily on Linux.

I still remember what Windows was like, and although the latest version may be better, I don't want to go back in that direction. However, some progams may work perfectly well under Windows.

Some people want to have systems which don't get the updates which firms such as Apple or Windows "provide", and just want to have frozen systems which will work with software they consider good enough, but most people do want internet connectivity, and this does seem to come with a price.

[Anastasius]

I can sympathise with that view, but what's the alternative? It may not be good, but other possibilities might be worse.

I was hoping you would get it working, and could tell us all that it really was a high performance machine and that you had a model which didn't actually cost both your arms and legs. It seems that may be unlikely.

I want to stick with Apple for the moment because of some software which I use most of the time, but there is other software which I could run happily on Linux.

I still remember what Windows was like, and although the latest version may be better, I don't want to go back in that direction. However, some progams may work perfectly well under Windows.

Some people want to have systems which don't get the updates which firms such as Apple or Windows "provide", and just want to have frozen systems which will work with software they consider good enough, but most people do want internet connectivity, and this does seem to come with a price.

The answer is simple. Stop them buggering about with websites and the latest whizz-bangs forever and a day. That is THE only reason why I wanted to upgrade. Day by day, either this or that website gets 'waggles fingers' "updated to improve the customer experience" aka screw you up even further because your elderly version of the browser won't support the latest (unnecessary) gizmo. Or the particular browser that worked yesterday on that website now doesn't.

[Dave2002]

The answer is simple. Stop them buggering about with websites and the latest whizz-bangs forever and a day. That is THE only reason why I wanted to upgrade. Day by day, either this or that website gets 'waggles fingers' "updated to improve the customer experience" aka screw you up even further because your elderly version of the browser won't support the latest (unnecessary) gizmo. Or the particular browser that worked yesterday on that website now doesn't.

Trouble with that view is that it assumes that the hardware will last “forever”. Apple hardware may well - if you’re lucky - last a lot longer than PCs, but in the end it will fail. I do agree though, that if software is working as end users want it to, then there really isn’t the “need” for endless churn, which often makes working systems function less well.

[Anastasius]

Agreed.

Maybe I should go out and buy an old Mac with Sierra and migrate from El C (2009 Mac) to that. Then go and buy another old mac that has High Sierra and migrate to that ....and so on? Nah, leave it in the box.

Did you know that Airdrop used to work on early 2009 Macs but then when they changed the OSX quietly dropped support for the bluetooth chipset and so now your Mac must be 2012 or later. Time for Linux methinks.

[Anastasius]

Thinking a bit more this, there's a real issue that has only just dawned on me and I bet that 99.99% of computer owners are unaware. We blithely follow the mantra and make backup copies. If we're on a Mac, we might use SuperDuper to make a clone. Safe in the knowledge that if our Mac blows up, we ca get another one, boot up from our SD copy, recover from that to our replacement Mac and away we go. Or not. There is no guarantee that the shiny new Mac you buy today will work from that backup. The internal h/w has changed. It will get even worse once the Apple chips come out. And to cap it all SD seems to want me to have my backup disk formatted using APFS which of course it is not since you backed up from a Mac needing OSX Extended/whatever (not had time to dig deeper to see if there is a workaround).

[Dave2002]

Agreed.

Maybe I should go out and buy an old Mac with Sierra and migrate from El C (2009 Mac) to that. Then go and buy another old mac that has High Sierra and migrate to that ....and so on? Nah, leave it in the box.

Did you know that Airdrop used to work on early 2009 Macs but then when they changed the OSX quietly dropped support for the bluetooth chipset and so now your Mac must be 2012 or later. Time for Linux methinks.

I agree with some of your comments, but maybe you are being a bit too negative.

If you only want basic software, why not go and buy one of the machines in this website - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPl...7615474&sr=8-2 and stick Linux on it. Maximum outlay £200 - though admittedly used kit. I have actually been considering this myself, and since you are presumably not averse to having a desk top machine - allbeit one with a painfully large and obstructive tower cabinet, you should easily be able to cover the costs when you sell the Apple one. In some areas you might even be able to pick up an older machine on Freecycle, though I looked and couldn't see one here.

What do you actually want the computer for, anyway? Is there any very specialist software which you really have to have running. or any software which needs a significant speed or space bump?

[Anastasius]

I agree with some of your comments, but maybe you are being a bit too negative.

If you only want basic software, why not go and buy one of the machines in this website - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPl...7615474&sr=8-2 and stick Linux on it. Maximum outlay £200 - though admittedly used kit. I have actually been considering this myself, and since you are presumably not averse to having a desk top machine - allbeit one with a painfully large and obstructive tower cabinet, you should easily be able to cover the costs when you sell the Apple one. In some areas you might even be able to pick up an older machine on Freecycle, though I looked and couldn't see one here.

What do you actually want the computer for, anyway? Is there any very specialist software which you really have to have running. or any software which needs a significant speed or space bump?

I could run Linux on my old iMac. But there is a downside to going down the Linux route. Time. I simply do not have the spare time to keep messing around with computers. And/or learning my way around a new system. I shouldn't even be sitting here at the keyboard!

[Anastasius]

Well....amazingly some good news. I have no idea what I did/or what/or when but having rebooted the new Mac few times...backed up to an external drive, booted from it to check it was OK (ain't that a rigmarole first time round!), rebooted from the Mac SSD and bing...new mail account added....bing new mail account added. All courtesy of iCloud. And my keychain.

Think I'll have a lie-down...too much excitement for one day.

[Anastasius]

And now for the bad news...on my old Mac I had a set of rules that filed incoming mail into appropriate folders. I also had two accounts. Those folders and rules do not sync up. I now have one inbox....6000 messages..from both mail accounts. All mixed up. Sledgehammer anyone.