As we know roon 2 needs at least mac os 10.15 to run and older mac mini’s etc pre say about 2012 or 2013 run newer versions of mac os.
My mid 2011 core with an ssd drive and 8gb ram for example cant update past 10.13
I have become aware of a program called “open core” (loads of utube videos etc) which gets around apple stopping you installing newer os versions and lets you install a newer osx which roon 2 would run on.
Anybody got any experience of this? Would be great if this was a way to not have to buy a new mac mini as all mine does is sit headless running core
Hi Sean
Yep, works well (for me, on a late 2012 Mini 16Gb/SSD). Now running Monterey 12.6 and Roon 2.0. The slightly older Mini you have has a minor issue with the GPU support which looks to be fixed in the current public beta.
OCLP is a really nice bit of work, am off to install Monterey on the kids 10 year old MBPs!
PM me if you want more info but it is all on the Dortania site.
You can open a big can of worms here. Some people struggle just to open ports on a router. But, should you wish to learn, it does become a great little hobby.
You have a couple of options. Before we used to use DosDude and he created a ‘all in one’ patch that was easy to setup and all the ‘patching’ was already included so one only had to install the OS to be up and running. I haven’t checked lately so I’m not sure if he still supports the newest OS.
Open core legacy is just as easy as long as you follow the guides to a ‘T’.
Once you start learning this you may find yourself in the ‘Hackingtosh’ world. I’ve built a couple of Window (Hackingtosh) machines at a 3rd of the price of Apple all runinng the latest OS. Although I find recent old Dell machines to be the best bang for buck in this case.
OCLP is the best way to breath some life into old hardware. But, remember updates can break installs, and from time to time you will need to tinker and test before doing any sort of upgrade.
Thankfully there are LOADS of tutorials on YouTube any one of which you can follow from start to finish.
Thanks alot for the replies, i guess if all goes wrong for whatever reason all i got to do is format the ssd and put it back how it was.
As you say great way to beathe new life into an older mac and in my case all it does is run roon so if i dont have to splash out for a new mini thats a massive plus.
Think i will give it a go when i get a nice quiet period to concentrate on it👍
I know you want to reuse your old 2011 mini - I have 2011 i5 mini and a 2012 i7 mini as well (which was my previous Roon core) - but I decided to get a basic spec M1 mini to use as my core.
The basic M1 is pretty cheap and will have years of software support going forward. It’s such a powerful and capable device some will see it as overkill, it basically idles in my setup and runs even cooler and more efficiently than previous Minis.
If you’ve got an old external USB drive lying around, I’d thoroughly recommend making a bootable mirror of your current setup. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner.
You make a bootable mirror of your current internal HD. Then stick it in a drawer.
You’re then free to mess about at your leisure. If you ever want to go back to your current setup, you just boot from the USB drive, and use Carbon Copy to mirror it back to your internal drive.
I’ve used this for years on my 2009 MBP. When the internal drive failed once… I just replaced it, booted up from my USB, cloned back to the new internal drive, and I was back up and running in 20 mins.
Yes i understand exactly what you mean, my mini does and will only ever run roon headless.
I agree with what you say about performance and maybe i will end up doing that in the long run, just not sure i wanna throw 700 euro at a new mac mini at the present moment if the 2011 will run it.
Not too bothered about future updates as i dont use the mini for anything else at all.
Will prob give it a go with the 2011 and see how it goes, if needs be i can look at an m1 later
Is the first time I’ve used open-core. It appears to work as expected and roon runs much more quickly than my older 2008 mac mini hardware for roon version 1.8.
