I have an old MacBook (2012) that runs macOS 10.13 (High Sierra, released in 2017) on 4GB RAM. I use it a couple times a year if I need to compile something for Mac x86 and don’t want to spend time setting up cross-compiling from my newer (M1) machine.
That MacBook is literally 13 years old, and the only upgrade I’ve given it is a new SSD back around 2018. It runs just fine.
Rip on the walled garden all you like, but if you want an OS with the stability and simplicity of a commercial OS, together with unix compatibility and a shell that lets you do whatever you want… macOS is your best bet. Using it literally feels like using a commercially polished and widely supported version of Linux.
Yah, like, there is plenty of negative things to say about Apple, but they’re actually pretty good about keeping their stuff efficient.
Like, there is a reason they could get away with 4GBs of ram in the Mac book air as late as 2016.
That reason being them having no competition in the Mac market.
I have an old MacBook (2012) that runs macOS 10.13 (High Sierra, released in 2017) on 4GB RAM. I use it a couple times a year if I need to compile something for Mac x86 and don’t want to spend time setting up cross-compiling from my newer (M1) machine.
That MacBook is literally 13 years old, and the only upgrade I’ve given it is a new SSD back around 2018. It runs just fine.
Rip on the walled garden all you like, but if you want an OS with the stability and simplicity of a commercial OS, together with unix compatibility and a shell that lets you do whatever you want… macOS is your best bet. Using it literally feels like using a commercially polished and widely supported version of Linux.