Your older Mac not eligible for macOS 26?
2025-06-10
With Apple’s WWDC25 announcements comes news that most pre-2020 Macs are ineligible for macOS 26. I don’t recall Apple’s policy for providing security updates for older Macs running the previous versions of macOS. A search seems to indicate about 2 years of security updates so anyone not eligible to upgrade this year will get another 2 years of security updates.
Obviously, given my recent turn to GNU/Linux I’m going to take this as an opportunity to encourage Mac users to add GNU/Linux to their line-up. Take it as an opportunity to learn. Productive and fun computing does not require macOS. My 2012 Mac is running the latest version of Linux Mint without breaking a sweat and gets all the latest security updates.
Let me say that again, my 2012 Mac easily runs the current distribution of Linux Mint with no problems. And for anyone who is not a regular reader of my blog here’s what I’ve been using that 2012 Mac to do on a daily basis:
- Design and layout using Scribus which is a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) application comparable to Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher. Newsletters, annual reports, etc are all easily done with Scribus. As a regular user of Affinity Publisher I was able to confidently use Scribus after 3-4 eight hour days. Unless a client requires a document in the Publisher format I’ll do all future projects in Scribus.
- Vector design and editing with the excellent FOSS application Inkscape instead of Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer. In truth, I’ve not used Illustrator in years but I mention it because others do use it. About the same transition time as with Scribus. I don’t use this kind af app as often so it’s been more gradual as need arises.
- I now do all of my photo cataloging/organization in digiKam instead of Apple Photos. Transitioning out of iCloud and Apple Photos took several steps. I wrote a post about the process.. I still capture all my photos on my iPhone but it all get’s stored on a local drive which is backed up. At any given moment I have access to all of the most recent photos on my iPhone if I need them. I don’t use my iPhone as a photo viewer so it’s rare that I need to access from there. Storing on a local drive was no problem for the years before iCloud, it’s no problem now.
- I use digiKam to edit my personal photos. Any client work that requires photo editing for websites or document design is done with GIMP, another FOSS app.
- All of my writing and website work is now done with a mix of excellent FOSS text editors. I’ve had trouble choosing because there are so many choices. For the past two weeks I’ve settled into the old school original Emacs and I’m loving it. In prior weeks I’d been trying and enjoying Kate, Ghostwriter, Bluefish, Sublime Text and the default Text Editor app that comes with the Mint installation.
- Web browsing and email are other categories with a lot of choices. Currently I’m using FireFox and Zen for the web. Thunderbird for email. I’ve also tried Evolution and MailSpring for email clients, both are very good.
- LibreOffice has rounded out the toolset and is a fantastic suite of office apps to replace Apple’s iWork (They don’t call it that anymore) and Microsoft’s Office.
And last, a note about the general feel of using GNU/Linux on this 2012 computer. It’s VERY fast. And no, this is not an exageration. The computer boots to the login screen in 22 seconds (Timed from the start-up chime). Open time for Scribus is 5 seconds which is faster than the 2021 M1 Mac opens Affinity Publisher. Start-up time for most apps is instantaneous to 1 second. The Cinnamon desktop I use with Linux Mint is a pleasure to use and easy to manage with all of the intuitiveness a Mac user would expect. Most apps can be installed or removed with one click via the included Software manager. System Settings is there for all the usual plus a lot of additional customization that cannot be done on a Mac.
Does it look exactly like a Mac? No. Does it work exactly like a Mac? Also, no. But it’s close and I found the transition easy and daily use just as easy. Easy enough that I would feel comfortable setting this up for my 78 year old iPad using dad, giving him a 15 minute orientation and know that he’d be fine for a good long while.
We all have different priorties in our computing. Personally, I’ve found it very liberating to make this transition. Being liberated from new, expensive hardware feels pretty fantastic. And the same for transitioning away from cloud-based computing. Sure, there is a conveniece factor that comes with the Apple ecosystem and iCloud. Strangely, I didn’t feel the “lock-in” until the day I did. And on the day it clicked for me I determined to step back and away from it. The joy of GNU/Linux is that my 2012 Apple manufactured computer and the 2018 Lenovo Thinkpad I bought used off of eBay in March both look and work exactly the same way.
Going forward, I can use any computer manufactured in the past 15 years and know that I can easily customize it to suit my needs with an up-to-date OS that is dependable and secure. Even better, it’s an OS and app ecosystem that is maintained and curated by the users. Let me say that again, GNU/Linux and the FOSS application ecosystem are built and maintained by users. Tens of thousands of people in an open community rather than a trillion dollar company that prioritizes profit and perpetual growth along with the whims of investors and Wall Street.
I’ll end with this. Apple is not the rebel, its goal is not to change the world for the better. Many Apple users still cling to the old Apple identity created by the “Think Different” marketing campaign two decades ago:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
In 2025 Apple is not that. It is my hope that the computer of the near and far future is one that prioritizes human needs and experience over capitalist driven profit and perpetual growth. From its first days the core ideal of GNU/Linux has been user freedom and openess. No marketing needed. As a new GNU/Linux user I’ve been deeply impressed and inspired by my first few months exploring this new-to-me community-driven ecosystem. I heartily recommend it.
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