Install macOS Catalina on non-supported MacBook Pros

I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 model and wanted to check if the latest macOS, Catalina can be installed on it.

Apple clearly says my Mac is not supported: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp803

Nevertheless, What ways are there there to get this Catalina running?

No, not directly. Catalina won’t have the drivers needed to operate the older CPU and GPU so you would need to heavily modify that OS to have it run on old gear.

Specifically you lack a Metal compatible GPU so Mojave and Catalina are going to need modifications or emulation to run:

• https://developer.apple.com/metal/
• How critical are macOS Mojave compatibility requirements?

That being said, you can get virtualization software that would let you run Catalina virtually - so the hardware you have will run - just not at full hardware speeds the latest OS.

Here is a patcher that says it supports MacBook Pro as old as 2008:

• http://dosdude1.com/catalina/

If that doesn’t work for you, I would recommend VMWare Fusion since we’ve had good results with that at work testing since Catalina was in beta in June and now in release. We don’t generally use portables that old, just Mac Pro so the slowdown for us might not be as bad as for you.