OpenCore Legacy Patcher: A self-experiment on the Mac Pro 2013
The OpenCore Legacy Patcher is a separate tool that enables devices long since discontinued by Apple to be operated with newer versions of macOS.
With my recently purchased Mac Pro 2013, Apple only supports macOS Monterey as the operating system. However, there are ways to install a current macOS - with far less effort than initially thought!
The Mac Pro from 2013 favored here last supported the macOS Monterey released in June 2021 and was then excluded from the lottery for the distribution of the latest operating systems at Apple. The reasons for this (as with the Windows 10/Windows 11 issue) can certainly be critically questioned, as the project around the OpenCore Legacy Patcher in particular shows that older Macs can also work with the latest macOS versions with a logical trick.
„Fire and forget“
The advantage is that you usually won't notice any difference between a patched and an unpatched system and you can also install the official macOS patches without any problems. The OCLP then provides a small boot sector via EFI, from which the Mac can then also boot the unsupported hardware cleanly under a new operating system. After the initial preparation (program installation by drag 'n drop), you can easily download the desired macOS version and create a bootable medium to - for example - provide the Mac Pro 2013 with macOS Ventura or even newer versions beyond Monterey. Although this is the short version, it is not significantly more complicated.
Minor updates to the system within a macOS line are also recognized: For example, the OCLP actively asks whether an update of the EFI boot environment should be carried out in order to remain up-to-date. The default boot timeout can also be adjusted in the settings so that the system does not only boot after five seconds, for example, but also directly without any detours if necessary. If you want to perform an update (e.g. from Monterey to Ventura), just press the “Option” key to boot not directly from the medium, but via the boot function of the OCLP, which in turn starts the installation medium in an adapted way: This also makes it possible to switch to the next higher macOS release - everything else is almost completely documented here!
Verdict
The “Thrashcan” is here and will be used as a stationary workstation (as long as I don't succumb to the temptation of the new Mac mini). The Mac Pro is currently running macOS 13 “Ventura” - the minimum requirement for some of the apps I use and a compromise between tolerable work and a reasonably up-to-date operating system. Sonoma was also still feasible with a further loss of speed. macOS 15 “Sequoia” also works thanks to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher, but is definitely no longer a speed miracle - but it's nice to see that Apple also at least unofficially brings the right device logos and makes such Intel Macs still (!) at least unofficially usable via the aforementioned detour. This should change at the latest when macOS no longer contains Intel code at some point, as the switch from Intel to Apple Silicon is already complete on all relevant platforms.
The alternative is and remains a Linux system, whose desktop capabilities I have also come closer to in recent weeks. However, this will be dealt with in another article - if you don't like this and want to continue using Intel-based Apple hardware with a macOS beyond Monterey, you should definitely take a closer look at the OpenCore Legacy Patcher: It may well be worth it!