Speed up an old Mac
Discover Elementary, a Mac-like operating system that’s kept up to date
Do you have an old Mac that’s incapable of running a recent version of OS X and so doesn’t receive important security
updates to apps such as Safari? That Mac may otherwise be functioning perfectly well, and it’d be a shame to get rid of it.
Thankfully, there’s an alternative operating system, called Elementary, that will keep your old Mac in service, with a desktop environment that’s designed with an eye on attracting Mac users thanks to its similar, friendly interface. It’s also lightweight, making it perfect for older Macs that are showing their age, and it comes with the essential apps you’ll need.
In this project you’ll learn how to install Elementary alongside your OS X installation (and Boot Camp installation of Windows too, if you have one), and how to switch between them as needed. Although light on resources, Elementary requires a reasonably fast dual-core processor with at least 2GB RAM, so you’ll need a Mac from about 2006 onwards, running OS X 10.6.8 or later.
Before you go any further, we suggest you try out Elementary first. The simplest solution is to install Elementary in a virtual machine within VirtualBox (free, virtualbox.org); when setting up the virtual machine, select the Ubuntu 64-bit option, which Elementary is based on. Mount the ISO file (see below) as a virtual DVD drive and you’re good to go.
If you decide to then install Elementary as a startup option for your Mac its own right, perhaps to use as its primary operating system, it pays to take some precautions. Start by making a full backup of your entire hard drive, so you can roll back if things go awry. Use a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner (around £35, bombich.com), and create rescue media that you can use to restore your Mac to its state from before you began this tutorial.
Create install media
First, download Elementary in ISO format. Go to elementary.io, where you can enter 0 in the Custom field to avoid paying for it, then click ‘Download elementary OS’. Save the ISO file
to your Mac’s hard drive – it’s more than 1GB in size. Once done, download and install Etcher (etcher.io). You’ll also need a 2GB or larger flash drive; with only one USB drive plugged in, open Etcher, click Select Image and select the ISO file and Etcher should automatically select your flash drive. Click ‘Flash!’, enter an admin account’s name and password, and wait for Elementary’s files to be copied to the drive. When this completes, you’ll be told the drive isn’t readable – this is normal, so click ‘Ignore’.
If you don’t have a suitable flash drive, you can pop a blank DVD into your Mac’s DVD drive instead, click the ISO file and choose ‘Burn Disc Image’ instead. Note that installing from a DVD is noticeably slower.
This project is really for versions of OS X that no longer get updates, but if you want to run Elementary alongside El Capitan or Sierra, see the extra details on page 66.
Install a boot manager
Next you need to install a boot manager that enables you to switch between OS X and Elementary. This will appear every time you start up your Mac, and shows icons for the available systems; Use the arrow keys to highlight one and press to choose it.
Download rEFInd from bit.ly/2kKdZM0: click the ‘binary zip file’ link and save the file to your Downloads folder. If Safari doesn’t automatically extract the Zip file’s contents, double-click the file in Finder to do so.
Open the folder this creates, then open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities and drag the refind-install script file from the folder onto Terminal’s window so its name appears in the command line. Press and enter your password to install rEFInd. It should end with an “Installation has completed successfully” message. Restart your Mac and you should see the rEFInd boot menu; it’ll always default to the last system you started up in.
Partition the hard drive
The final preparation step is to free up space on your hard drive for Elementary to reside on. You’ll need to take this space from your existing Mac partition (Boot Camp is off limits,
so you’ll have to take unused drive capacity from your OS X partition). Look to take a minimum of 20GB, or more if you plan to make Elementary your primary operating system on this Mac.
Open Disk Utility, select your hard drive on the left (not a volume on it) and click the Partition tab. Select OS X’s partition and reduce its size by the amount you want to give to Elementary. Click Apply > Partition, then leave the newly free space as it is.
You’re now ready to embark on the installation process. To do so, follow the step-by-step guide opposite.
After installing Elementary
When the installation finishes, your Mac will restart straight into Elementary. But wait: what’s happened to rEFInd? It’s been supplanted by Elementary’s own boot loader, but you can restore it: open the Epiphany web browser and download the same binary Zip file as you did earlier. Choose Applications > Files from the menu bar, go to the Downloads folder, and then right-click the Zip file and choose ‘Extract Here’.
Open the newly created refind-bin folder, then right-click inside the Files window and choose ‘Open With > Terminal’. Finally, type
./refind-install, press , then enter your account password and press again; a series of messages should appear confirming that rEFInd is the default boot manager once more. Finally, restart your Mac and you’ll find that you’re now able to easily switch between OS X and Elementary.
If you use El Capitan or Sierra
To install Elementary alongside these systems, you must temporarily disable System Integrity Protection. Restart your Mac and hold till the Apple logo appears. When the Recovery system starts, choose Utilities > Terminal, type
csrutil disable, press and restart the Mac. After installing the rEFInd boot manager, you can turn SIP back on; choose the Apple Recovery option from the boot manager; in the Recovery system, pick Utilities > Terminal as before, but this time type csrutil enable to re-enable SIP, then restart. Note: reinstalling rEFInd requires you to disable SIP first.
When prepping storage for Elementary, Disk Utility won’t let you create free space; it insists on creating a partition you must later delete when installing Elementary. Select the disk itself and click Partition. Verify you have enough free space, then click + to add a new partition. Set its format to FAT32 to make it easier to identify, and set its size accordingly, then click Apply and wait for it to be created.
When you reach the ‘Something else’ screen in Elementary’s installer, you’ll need to delete the FAT32 partition, then use the resulting free space as instructed.