OpenCore & OCLP Explained (OpenCore Legacy Patcher)

this video is going to be really dense but I promise you if you watch the entire thing you'll understand the following what open core is how open core works why it works the way it does and how open core Legacy Patcher fits in with open core since we have so much to cover let's just get right into this you're watching this video you're probably aware of open core and open core Legacy Patcher but a little bit hazy on what the difference is and what they actually do open core is a bootloader which is a term you've probably heard thrown around but not really explained and we'll get to that in short open core lets you run Mac OS on old Macs that are no longer supported by Apple and Hardware that was never supported by Apple like hackintoshes this video is a high level overview so you can understand how open core works and what open core Legacy Patcher is before we get further I just want to say there is a written version of this guide in the description of the video in years past when users wanted to run Mac OS on unsupported Macs they had turned to modifying the operating system the most common being pre-configured scripts like dos dude one these weren't perfect as you generally had to reapply them each time you updated the OS no matter how small the update even a security update could render your Mac unbootable until repatched this process was simple to do until it was not here's what happened over time Mac OS has evolved to be more closed at the system level this kicked off when Apple started following the trend of signed code in 2009 with the introduction of snow leopard sign code allows the OS to verify the identity of the software developer and ensures that the application has not been tampered with or modified since it was signed this evolved in many ways but most important is the modern usage of Integrity protection which exists in Mac OS as system Integrity protection introduced in 10.11 El Capitan sip or system Integrity protection restricts the actions of the root user slash privilege processes that can be performed on critical system files and folders to translate all that back into human speak a rogue application will have a much tougher time hacking your OS as it doesn't have permission to do so well also Integrity protection exists in the file system itself in a PFS with metadata Integrity protection which uses cryptographic verification of metadata which helps prevent tampering and protects against malware attempts to modify the system the system itself now exists on a separate partition within the apfs container that is read only during normal operation all of this makes Mac OS a lot less likely to be infected with OS level malware Apple in more recent releases has deprecated kecks small modules of code designed to extend functionality of the Mac OS kernel and other system components such as device drivers or file systems kex AKA kernel extensions are very powerful thus they're a potential Vector for malware of course the focus on security has complicated modifying Mac OS by Third parties however some very smart programmers and hackers device impressive Solutions meanwhile on the Hackintosh side of things users who wanted to run Mac OS on PC Hardware had created a thriving software scene Clover became the preferred and essential method of installing Mac OS on unsupported Hardware Clover was a bootloader and could inject kecks into Mac OS a bootloader is a piece of software that is responsible for loading the operating system kernel and initializing Hardware devices during the boot process we're going to dig into this a bit more in a minute Clover was essential but has shortcomings regarding security compatibility configuration and generally required additional patching Hackintosh users and owners of unsupported Macs both face a similar problem when trying to run Mac OS on unsupported Hardware a system update could break their entire setups and until certain hacks and patches were reapplied obviously accidentally updating your computer and having it not be able to boot is kind of a problem opencorp was developed as a way to fix these issues for both unsupported Macs and hackintoshes relying on this ability to inject changes as part of the boot process rather than modifying the OS itself the advantage is is the OS would be left intact without requiring altering of most of the security settings or patching and hacking the OS the advantage is pretty clear if you happen to update your computer no problems or less problems open core uses a feature called text injection when opencorp boosts the Mac OS kernel it scans the system for all available cats and injects them into the kernel as needed this allows users to add support for Hardware devices that aren't natively supported by Mac OS or to modify the system behavior in various ways open core also uses the concept of text patches to modify the behavior of existing kecks or to patch the Mac OS kernel itself Clover also supported this as well but open course methods are improved text patches are small Snippets of code that are applied to kecks or the kernel at boot time which can be used to modify the system Behavior or to add support for additional Hardware components when the computer boots open core acts as middleware for the U EFI or EFI on the computer a standard for computer bios that Mac OS uses open core loads its own firmware and presents the user with a bootloader graphical user interface allowing the user to select their desired operating system if the user boots Mac OS it performs pre-checks and prepares for booting by prepping necessary modification then loads the Mac OS kernel into memory and modifies it with the kernel patches and modifications and Lowe's kex for additional Hardware support or system modifications once done open core hands over the control to the OS and booting proceeds as normal to Summarize each time you boot Mac OS with open core it is modifying Mac OS on the Fly meaning you can update your operating system without worrying about losing patches or lowering your security settings open core is fairly complicated to configure thus users would often share the configs for various Hardware setups for example a very popular configuration for the classic Mac Pro users was Martin Lowe's open core configurations this worked very well for users whose heart Hardware matched or resembled the hardware the pre-config was targeting as it created a template for other users to follow and edit while this worked it required a fair amount of technical know-how reading and research especially if your Hardware differed in a significant way such as a different GPU or network interface open core Legacy Patcher aimed to make this a point-and-click Experience open core Legacy Patcher is a Community Driven Project based on open core designed with Old Mac specifically in mind opencorp Legacy pasture is a graphical user interface that automates installing opencorp on Max that Apple no longer supports unlike PCS that come with an exceptionally wide range of configurations Apple's product line is exceptionally small this makes it predictable for open core Legacy Patcher developers to create configurations for users based on the hardware it detects rather than the user modifying open core configurations themselves and of course power users can modify open core manually after using open core Legacy Patcher with a few short steps a user can install open core on an old Mac allowing them to run recent versions of Mac OS on Hardware that Apple has elected to no longer support apple doesn't make its money on Old Hardware thus habitually drops support even if the hardware is quite capable of providing a pleasant user experience Apple's yearly OS updates have slowly required more and more developer support for Apple security features and also of depreciated older Technologies at a pretty fast clip the end result is an older copy of Mac OS may not support the latest and greatest software even as crucial as a web browser that works with modern web standards in contrast Windows has a much longer support window and with less frequent overhauls while this is totally a personal opinion it makes me realize the value of a paid OS update model as it seems to be the case for Windows and longer term support okay you made it through all of that so let's go through and quickly summarize it so you can get on with the rest of your day open core is the backbone for providing support for older computers opencor Legacy Patcher is the utility to configure and install open core in a very user-friendly way open core is a bootloader specifically designed to work with Apple's current security Paradigm and avoids modifying the OS stored on the boot volume it instead applies the patches on the Fly and during the boot sequence if you'd like to learn more about Open core I've created a video about rescuing a Mac Pro 2008 from storage and installing open core on it I also created a five minute tutorial on the process of installing open core using open core Legacy Patcher and I've created an open core playlist in my YouTube channel for future open core videos

Channel: Definitive Mac Upgrade Guide

Views: 28,756

Keywords: Apple, Mac, macOS, Mac Pro

Id: VSF9eCLDpoI

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023