Running OS X El Capitan on a late 2009 Macbook White Unibody (Part 1)
The Captain is Here
Okay, so finally the latest OS X version came out of beta and was officially launched last September 30. Dubbed as ‘El Capitan’, it promises better user experience and performance. With it being free and having minimal system requirements (much like with Yosemite’s case) I’m actually already sold to upgrading. Apple claims that the El Capitan is compatible with the following Macs:
- MacBook (Early 2015)
- MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminium, or Early 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
- Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
- iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
- Xserve (Early 2009)
So chances are, if your rig is already running Yosemite without hiccups, then the new OS X 10.11 should run smoothly and theoretically give you better performance. There’s also a list of new features that comes along with the upgrade (view them here), though just like before, since we’re focusing on the late 2009 MacBook unibody – some of the bells and whistles like Handoff, Instant Hotspot and AirDrop aren’t supported.
Since my MBW has already been upgraded with an SSD and 8GB RAM, I’m quite confident that my setup should be able to fundamentally run OS X 10.11 without any problems at all.
So Why Haven’t You Upgraded Yet?
Well… in every OS upgrade there’s always the consideration of your apps getting f*cked up. A quick search online of “osx el capitan and adobe cs6 compatibility” brings up threads of varying opinions/experiences; some saying that their Creative Suite totally stopped working properly after the upgrade and some saying that CS users just need to make a Java Update to get everything working again.
User elizabethw2177410 posted in the Adobe Illustrator Forum “Well, I took one for the team and installed El Capitan. Once it was installed it prompted me to update Java, and everything seems to be in working order. So there’s that.”
Another concern is that my Wacom drawing tablet driver doesn’t have an update yet. So that could fairly mean that it won’t work properly with the El Capitan, just like how it broke down with Yosemite – which is kind of a deal-breaker for me since I use this a lot.
The Verdict
I have decided to sit this out for the next two weeks or until adobe officially announces CS6 compatibility with El Capitan and I get necessary updates for my other essential apps. This also gives me time to see whether apple will be releasing security updates and/or bug fixes for the new OS. When I do finally upgrade my Late 2009 MacBook White Unibody to El Capitan, I will be posting updates here.
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Hey guys, could you cover up how to change icons of apple apps in El Capitan. It was simple enough till Yosemite, now I m not able to do that.