https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/opencore-legacy-patcher-project-brings-macos-sonoma-support-to-16-year-old-macs/
But there are some incompatibilities that a small indie team just can't fix.
Such a disingenuous headline. The article outlines how pre-2012 Mac can’t support Metal, which breaks a bunch of stuff.
An aside: A few years ago, I used OCLP to install Monterey on my old (Early 2013) MacBook Pro 13”. It was fine, until one day it just stopped booting. It wasn’t hardware: Wiped it, reinstalled Catalina, still worked fine. It’s a fun toy to play with, but I wouldn’t want to be depending on it for anything important.
On similar note, it’s a shame to see perfectly functional older systems to be left behind due to expired root certificates or other similar issues. I don’t care about the bells and whistles of newer OS, but is there a way to update older systems to support slightly newer encryption standards so it can continue to hang on for a bit longer (as macOS system, I know of course I can install Ubuntu on it)? — looking at my unibody aluminum MacBook from 2011 or so, for example.
I have an old Mac Mini that is relegated to a closet because of this. My parents could have used it for basics like email and browsing but they can’t because there’s no way to update it to allow those certs to work again.
Eh, I've been using OCLP on a few Macs for the past couple of years and have never had a troubles once they're set up and running. I'm running Sonoma on my 2014 mini that I'm typing this on, and it's solid.
But yeah, I have a 2011 mini as well that I use for giving Keynote presentations that I'll probably leave on Monterey because it huffs and puffs a bit even with that. The lack of official Metal support is a pain, and while OCLP has done a really good job of overcoming it up until Ventura, by all accounts it's not great under Sonoma. So far.