macadmin-scripts VS Opencore-Legacy-Patcher

FWIW, I just remembered that https://github.com/grahampugh/macadmin-scripts can download High Sierra as well. Maybe that helps.

If your old MBP doesn't have the softwareupdate command available (I don't remember when Apple added it), you can try something like Graham Pugh's installinstallmacos.py script, from Github: https://github.com/grahampugh/macadmin-scripts

Download installinstallmacos.py from github, this is Graham Pugh's version that allows more automation by choosing the version for you.

I used https://github.com/grahampugh/macadmin-scripts to download Big Sur and https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher to patch it. 2012 Mac Mini should work with graphics acceleration, but the 2010 won't, so it'll be pretty sluggish on the MBP.

At a guess I would say probably using OCLP - https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher - lots of life left in old Mac’s using that tool !

I had this issue, too. But luckily, I've got a solution. First, you'll need to check your MacOS Sonoma version. If you're using 14.1 beta, this method will NOT work. In such cases, I recommend installing the official 14.0. Thankfully, this commit (https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/commit/1aee2e5dfa12d10e218a51e4151ac2e96705ae9e) solved the problem! However, the latest OCLP 1.0.1 still doesn't have it. To use it, you can build OCLP from code or use the OCLP Nightly link found here. After you find the nightly link and download OCLP, build it onto your MBP, and after rebooting, install the patches. If you look carefully, you'll see that 'experimental T1 Patches' will be available in the list of post-installation patches.

From what I've assessed reading other posts, Monterey (Ventura has USB & stability issues) with OCLP 0.6.7 is the most stable install for this device (have not yet seen any reports using OCLP 1.0+, although happy to see some new non-Metal fixes going in). This is a bit of a bummer, as Monterey will not likely receive updates past end of 2024 (next year).

I'm not taking a position on OCLP being trustworthy or not, but at least the project appears to be 100% open source [0], which is more than we can say about Apple.

[0] https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Have you explored https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher?

I have used it before and, in my experience and everyone else I know who has used it, the vast majority of time the newer versions run absolutely fine with no issues. Occasionally some newer features don't work, but I'd but confident that 2015/2017 iMacs would be able to run the latest version no problem.

Link to pull request to track OLCP Sonoma support state, you can also read more info there: https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/pull/1077