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OS X Desktops (Apple) Operating Systems Apple

Apple Makes OS X Lion and Mountain Lion Free To Download (macrumors.com) 47

Mac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion can now be downloaded for free from Apple's website. "Apple has kept OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion available for customers who have machines limited to the older software, but until recently, Apple was charging $19.99 to get download codes for the updates," notes MacRumors. "The $19.99 fee dates back to when Apple used to charge for Mac updates. Apple began making Mac updates free with the launch of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which also marked the shift from big cat names to California landmark names." From the report: Mac OS X Lion is compatible with Macs that have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor, a minimum of 2GB RAM, and 7GB storage space. Mac OS X Mountain Lion is compatible with the following Macs: iMac (Mid 2007-2020), MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer), MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer), Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer), Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer), and Xserve (Early 2009). Macs that shipped with Mac OS X Mavericks or later are not compatible with the installer, however.
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Apple Makes OS X Lion and Mountain Lion Free To Download

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  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @05:45PM (#61538788)

    what about mac os 8 and 9? or are they free? under the law not just anbandonware

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )
      If for some reason you want to run ancient Macs, you can run Linux nicely on them. - Even PowerPC Macs.

      Cripple dicking around with an ancient Mac with Operating system Software takes a lot of cripple dicking.

      • If for some reason you want to run ancient Macs, you can run Linux nicely on them.

        That would be pointless. The point of saving a 68K or 60x (pre-G3 PPC) from the ewaste dumpster is to run Mac OS 8.1 and 9.1 respectively; to run Mac OS legacy software.

        • Apple aren't going to be going after a bunch of end users keeping ancient Macs alive.

          You'll probably get into legal hot water if you were to, say, design a PPC Mac clone and then sell it with copyrighted Apple ROMs and software. In fact, if you reverse engineered the ROMs and came up with an original but compatible PPC Mac design, then told people to get your software somewhere else, it would almost definitely be legal.
      • If for some reason you want to run ancient Macs

        System 6. Accept nothing less... and certainly nothing more.

        • If for some reason you want to run ancient Macs

          System 6. Accept nothing less... and certainly nothing more.

          I think it was system 6.7 I used to really like.

    • by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Apple didn't charge for the base operating system up to System 7. There was a premium version of System 7.1 that you had to pay for called System 7 Pro with additional features like PowerTalk e-mail (for internal e-mail, not Internet e-mail), but the rest of the updates were free to download, or sold for a nominal media fee by resellers or mail order. The license said the software was only to be run on a Mac - that's where the money was supposed to be. The Mac clone makers (Daystar, Power Computing, Moto

      • mac os 8.6 and 9 was not free for older macs.

        • by _merlin ( 160982 )

          That must have changed later - you could download the installation media images for 8.6 and 9.1 from Apple for free in 2000.

      • by hawk ( 1151 )

        >they never offered a license to clone makers to include MacOS 8 pre-installed,

        That's not quite correct, though.

        The clones were all using a lower end Mac motherboard design that was provided. But then they goosed the speeds to compete with apple's high end--which is where apples profits that funded R&D came from.

        Apple told them that System 8 licensed machines would pay apple a royalty based on machine performance, and there were no takers.

        • by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Daystar weren't using those boards. The Daystar Dyna MP systems were high-end multiprocessor systems with in-house board designs. Apple's best attempt art competition was the PowerMac 9500, which was late, more expensive, and not as fast.

          • by hawk ( 1151 )

            yes--but they were still paying the same low royalty.

            Apple wanted high end machines eating its lunch to pay part of the freight.

            • by _merlin ( 160982 )

              Apple had unrealistic expectations from the clones. They wanted/expected the clones to be low-end, low-margin machines that could grow the market share of the Mac platform while not eating into Apple's own sales. There was no way that was going to happen. Apple didn't have great offerings at the top or bottom of the range, and their machines were priced too high. They had Daystar aiming straight for the high-end market, and the other clones aiming for price-sensitive education and business customers.

              • by hawk ( 1151 )

                It certainly turned out to be unrealistic.

                Possibly most so in not anticipating the high end clones . . .

                My initial point is simply that apple didn't so much refuse to license system 8 as refuse to continue on a suicidal path, requiring high end machines from others to chip in on the R&D costs--and there were no takers.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      And other versions! I still have an old PB G4 1 Ghz in storage.

    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Apple used to have an FTP server that had old version of MacOS available for download. I remember System 6.0.8 and 7.1... I think 7.5.5 might have been the newest version on it. Keep in mind this was back before OSX so that's why MacOS9 wasn't on it, it was still a recent release.

      It's been so long now I'm sure they've taken the server down now.

  • You're talking about machines with vulnerabilities unpatched since August 2015, and any web browser that will load to them is similarly vulnerable. Maybe useful as long as they're not internet-connected, in very limited ways.
    • Nothing wrong with that. Now I can add to my collection of OS.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Snow Leopard, I could understand, for running PowerPC games in Rosetta in a virtualization environment, but who in their right minds would want to download Lion or Mountain Lion at this point?

        Useful versions:

        • Mac System 6.x: Last version that a lot of old games worked in.
        • Mac System 7.5.5: Last version that supported 24-bit addressing.
        • Mac OS 9: Last version of classic Mac OS.
        • Tiger: Last version that supports Classic (for Mac OS 9), though there are better ways to emulate Mac OS 9
        • Snow Leopard: Last version t
        • by hubang ( 692671 )
          Lion is the last supported version for a 1,1 Mac Pro or a 2,1 (or earlier) Xserve. So if you want to bring back some legacy hardware, you're going to need them. Even if you upgrade, you usually need Lion as a starting place. During the lockdown, I built up an old Mac Pro1,1 to be the best it could be. Getting a copy of Lion was the hardest part.
        • by Tarlus ( 1000874 )

          Monterey: Las version that can run 64-bit Intel apps. :-D (Too soon?)

          Oof. I hope you're wrong, but you're probably right.

        • by psergiu ( 67614 )

          You CAN install a (slightly) newer Mac OS on older machines with MacPostFactor or DosDude1's patchers but you need to start with the latest officialy supported Mac OS version already running on the box.

  • An empty gesture? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shades72 ( 6355170 ) on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @06:37PM (#61538894)

    I owned an old MacBook from 2006/2007, Intel Core Duo with 2 GByte of RAM. All ports and DVD burner are fully functional, no scratches on the screen, a bit of discoloration, some brittle edges (because of the Paraguayan sun) and a dead battery.

    Came with OS X Tiger. Well, surfing the internet was barely possible, because HTTPS wasn't supported. As in at all. With today's internet hiding almost completely behind that protocol, not much is left.

    And Safari made an absolute mess of the layout from websites that were still accessible. FireFox OS X Tiger didn't do that much better with the layout.

    While point releases at Apple are usually more significant than their counterparts in Windows, a simple jump to Lion or Mountain Lion would not help with the layout mess from Safari. And I expect FireFox not to fare much better.

    What I did was replacing the HDD with a SSD, booted from a DVD with Lubuntu Linux 14.04 (32-bit, because of the Apple bootloader), installed that on the SSD. Then migrated to Lubuntu 16.04 and migrated again to Lubuntu 18.04.

    That is the last version as there appears to be no newer 32-bit version of Lubuntu anymore. Getting the camera to work again was a bit of a hassle, but the rest worked out of the box. Modern browser on it and now the 2 GByte of RAM is the limiting factor in how many HTTPS tab I can open.

    Best thing I did for that MacBook was to put Linux on it and make it somewhat useful again. Gave it away to a friend who was burgled and lost her money and her laptop and she is still using it happily. At least that is what she tells me.

    Macs can last a long time, but reality is that you should not be more than one, maybe 2 generations behind Apple's hardware cadence, if you want decent support from 3rd party software vendors on the Apple platform.

    And pay through the nose for that privilege, of course. That rubs me the wrong way, but not nearly as much as the 'our way or the highway'-mentality throughout their operating systems.

    Found the 'bringing the MacBook back to a functional life' an interesting exercise, but was happier giving it away.

    • Came with OS X Tiger. Well, surfing the internet was barely possible, because HTTPS wasn't supported. As in at all.

      uh no

      that's not how that works

      as in at all

      • So....my own eyes deceived me when I tried to open web sites behind the https protocol, in both Safari and FireFox? The error message was pretty clear: protocol not supported.

        Thank god I have you to correct me.

        But don't worry, the thing runs Linux now. And did that well when it was still in my care. Gave it away to someone in need and that is about where my satisfaction with Apple gear ends.

        Or do you want to contest that too? What do I know....after all, without your instructions on how to breathe, I (and e

          • So there is a problem with an almost 15 year OS, because of a change introduced by an Apple security fix, back in 2007. And by reverting the change, HTTPS works again?

            How do I make this clear? Wasn't interested in "fixing" it, as I dislike any moment I need to work with any Apple operating system. Reverting security updates is not a solution in such an old OS. A workaround at best, and who knows what kind of worms you'll have to deal with when you open that can. Especially with no support from Apple if crap

    • by psergiu ( 67614 )

      If you had a Core2Duo cpu, you could have put 4GB of RAM, a SSD and go up to 10.11 El Capitan with MacPostFacto.
      The 32-bit CPUs is the issue. Although, if you're good at replacing BGA components, you could solder a 2.33GHz T7600 Core2Duo in there, do a forced firmware update and it'll work just fine:
      https://forums.macrumors.com/t... [macrumors.com]

  • by larwe ( 858929 ) on Wednesday June 30, 2021 @06:55PM (#61538936)
    Both of those installers require an existing OSX version to be installed on the machine - they cannot be used to install a blank hard disk. At some point Apple's installers started phoning home to check if your Apple ID had a license to install OSX version [whatever] and it became possible to get into a situation where you couldn't install an OS on a bare machine, or at least not easily - unless you had access to an Apple ID that had installed that specific version once, somewhere.
    • Really ? I've never needed an Apple ID to install any version of OS X / MacOS on a bare machine, even a hackintosh.

      Entering an Apple ID during OOB has always been a (strong) suggestion, but never a requirement.

    • by Reeses ( 5069 )

      You've been able to use Apple Software Restore to create bootable install media for every Mac OS X installer up to Big Sur.

      I've done it for every one, since I do clean installs for major MacOS revision. Some of the earlier versions require a little bit of command line trickery to fire it off, but it works. You may have to Google a bit to find the process.

      • by larwe ( 858929 )
        It's now long enough since I've done this so I don't recall the details, but my workplace decommissioned a bunch of MacBooks (I want to say, mostly 13" unibodies? They were the metal-cased MacBooks with a removable battery that lives under a removable metal door), and they had no hard disks so I had to install blank disks. I tried all sorts of different install media and before installation the installer would require me to connect to a network and log in with an Apple ID. Mine didn't work because I'd never
        • by psergiu ( 67614 )

          If you have a bootable MacOS install media (press Option key at boot-up for a list of bootable devices) and no network connectivity, the installer won't ask for anything Apple-ID- or will offer a "do it later" button.
          You might have been doing a Internet-restore (Command-R at startup) - on which the OS image is loaded over the internet from Apple's servers and it will ask for the AppleID to install the latest OS version you have in your account ( if newer than what was shipped with the box ) and also restore

          • by larwe ( 858929 )
            I'm confusing myself now. I know that I have seen this problem on machines that did not support Internet restore, when I was booted off a DVD. It is possible that it was a machine-specific DVD for a different model Mac and this triggered a license check or something.
    • Just last weekend, I installed Lion on a blank hard drive in my late '11 MBP. Aside from the usual post-installation setup for an actual user account, I didn't need anything in the way of an Apple ID to install the OS.
    • At some point Apple's installers started phoning home to check if your Apple ID had a license

      Given that you neither need an Internet connection nor need to enter your Apple ID when doing a clean install of macOS—the steps to connect to the Internet and enter your Apple ID are currently, and have always been, skippable—I’m gonna call BS. You seem to be confused because Apple produced upgrade-only copies of installers, or else other copies that were limited in various ways, but they were always tied to things like specific hardware revisions (e.g. the OS disc included with a MacBook

      • by larwe ( 858929 )

        Sadly I can't provide more details than my memory, but it was absolutely not BS. There's actually a lot of chat on the Internet- here's an example https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7787118 [apple.com] I had a few different (random, burned) installer DVDs given to me by IT. I did not have a bootable Mac on hand, just a stack of machines with blank hard drives - blank, no hidden partitions, because the drives were unformatted, junkbox drives out of PCs. I'd boot off the install DVD, partition and format the disk, then

    • Do you have a source for that? I've never heard of this nor seen it in my experience from System 7 up to current macOS.

      • by larwe ( 858929 )
        Only my own experience trying to resurrect some Macs (without, at the time, a working Mac to do it - just a handful of different installer DVDs from IT).
    • Yeah - you are right, it can be an absolute PITA to install a fresh copy of anything other than the version that you're particular model shipped with ... assuming you go the default no hackery route.

      If you have at least a small amount of technical nous, go via a 'hacky' route is pretty damn easy - something like OpenCore for example.

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