macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[libneko]

Thanks for the job. It's possible to work WiFi without all these steps? it's more complicated for me and other users. Thanks! If not, i will buy an USB WiFi Dongle. THANKS!

If you got "failed with 66", I don't know any other way. If I knew any other way - the guide would be much simplier

 

[Han98]

How do I delete the Telemetry Plugin?

 

[Marco4957]

I have working Wifi in a 2012 Mac mini with my kext, sound as well. Will verify the BCM94360 next with a 2015 MBA.

I can also confirm WiFi is working on a late 2011 MBPro (BCM94331)

 

[Humble-X]

ok so dictation doesn't work on default function key press twice, but there is a walk around you can assign it to another key which I have done. I chose the right command key press twice?. Works flawlessly now??

 

[bhast2]

ok I'm trying to read all of this. could come one point me to the instructions of installing in on to my mid 2012 mbp. thank you

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

what kind of name is that anyways. Oh well macOS Bug sir, here we go!

It's a place in California; I've gone camping there before. I guess that's the only reason why it doesn't sound foreign to me. Does it sound good, though? Eh—I agree that it doesn't really sound that great.
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Somehow, I expected my first-gen Retina MacBook Pro would be dropped. Granted, I hope I can patch it (should I even want to update to Big Sur). Although this thing is nowhere as quick, post-Yosemite, as it was when it ran Mountain Lion, it is still a plenty powerful and capable machine and should run Big Sur just fine. The RAM is not upgradeable, but it was configured with the maximum anyway—same with the CPU.

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

After some minimal debugging I guess can give some hints on how to include the parrotgeek1 LegacyUSBInjector.kext that is required on "unsupported HighSierra Mac" to have IOUSB input and output devices responsive as for example: bluetooth mouse and keyboard, internal trackpad and keyboard, external usb mouse and keyboard, external usb hard disk and so on.

The USB BigSur Installer use this to load its recovery environment (or macOS Ramdisk):

/Volumes/USBLabel/BaseSystem/BaseSystem.dmg
/Volumes/USBLabel/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.boot.plist
/Volumes/USBLabel/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi (and PlatformSupport.plist)
/Volumes/USBLabel/System/Library/KernelCollections/BootKernelExtensions.kc

"PrelinkedKernels" folder is no more used, now seems apple use only BootKernelExtensions.kc
and for third party kext this other path /Library/KernelCollections/AuxiliaryKernelExtensions.kc

using kmutil can easily build (targeting the BigSur volume) a new BootKernelExtensions.kc

If instead the BootKernelExtensions.kc used is the one inside BaseSystem.dmg
then the path is "BaseSystem mounted"/System/Library/KernelCollections/BootKernelExtensions.kc
(I'd exclude that also BaseSystemKernelExtensions.kc is used for booting)

Then to make a new Patcher surely a modified BaseSystem.dmg should be made with something as:

make temporary "writeable" the BaseSystem.dmg

hdiutil attach -owners on BaseSystem.dmg -shadow

copying the patches or modified file to the BigSur BaseSystem and make read-only again

hdiutil convert -format UDZO BaseSystem.dmg -shadow

This maybe still won't let to install BigSur on "unsupported HighSierra Mac", but at least they can use the BigSur recovery environment, otherwise they should clone a BigSur installation from an "HighSierra supported Mac" or "Catalina supported Mac", but anyway they require a pre-build BootKernelExtensions.kc with USBLegacyInjector.kext embedded.

Thank you, now it is clear what is happening

 

[macsba]

Food for thought:

Redditor Installs macOS 'Big Sur' On Acer Chromebook

It hasn't been one week and a Redditor has installed the macOS Big Sur on the Acer Chromebook. Coolstarorg posted a screenshot of the Acer C720 Chromebook running the recently released macOS 11 Big Sur.

fossbytes.com

 

[webg3]

 

[Semmo]

Big Sur is up and running on my 2012 15in rMBP (10,1). As it was basically maxed at the time with an i7 and tons of RAM it's a shame it's not supported. After the 2nd restart it really is snappy and quiet, so no reason. Other than Wifi, everything is up and recognized and had no issues. Can't do the easy wifi method here as I get the 66, and I could follow those steps but for now, I'll admit I'm lazy. My current work around is just plugging my iPhone in as a hotspot, works fine.

I agree mate. I have the same machine. I think we can upgrade the wifi card pretty cheaply so that’s a win.
If you click on any of the menu bar items (sound, Bluetooth etc) do you get a bit of a big delay/hang Like it’s loading every time? Other than that the install is pretty easy. Enjoy!

 

[quaccOS]

Before I make a new Catalina partition for this process,
Is there any way to Install BS directly to a blank partition (or make an external bootable USB)? I have the InstallAsistant.pkg from Apple's download catalog, along with Hax.dylib and InstallHax.m. SIP should be disabled anyway, running patched Catalina. I presume nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check" should also be enabled too, thanks to macOS Catalina Patcher.

So the last two tasks left would be, disabling Library Validation and injecting Hax.dylib, right?
Would attempting to make an external bootable installer not be easier to avoid BIErrorDomain error 3? — then figure out how to apply the necessary patches like adding-in the Hax.dylib to the home folder, and removing the Telemetry plugin etc.

It all seems really confusing.
I made a blank 90 GB partition for testing, but I don't want to install BS over my main 150 GB Catalina partition.
MBP 7,1 on 10.15.5. 2.4 GHz Penryn Core2Duo CPU.

 

[ASentientBot]

I'm extremely confused -- on my first install of BS, it booted from the live volume and could be mounted in Catalina, modified, and those changes would immediately apply. Then I wiped and reinstalled, and now it's got the snapshots, error 66, etc. that most of you experienced. I can't figure out what changed between the two times.

This does show that booting from a live root volume is completely possible, though. If only I can find a way to force that...

Anyone have some insights into this weirdness? I'll report back if I find something, but am thoroughly stumped right now.

 

[Fangio]

So far so good, Big Sur up and running on the MBP in my sig. Installation went smooth, thanks for the guides by @ASentientBot and @GameRoof.

 

[jackluke]

I'm extremely confused -- on my first install of BS, it booted from the live volume and could be mounted in Catalina, modified, and those changes would immediately apply. Then I wiped and reinstalled, and now it's got the snapshots, error 66, etc. that most of you experienced. I can't figure out what changed between the two times.

This does show that booting from a live root volume is completely possible, though. If only I can find a way to force that...

Anyone have some insights into this weirdness? I'll report back if I find something, but am thoroughly stumped right now.

I also erased and re-installed, and I still can use on BigSur "sudo mount -uw /" without issues, maybe is unrelated but I noticed that using the "Install macOS Beta.app" from Catalina desktop inherits some current Catalina configuration and deploy it to the new BigSur , since I use small disks I keep disabled the APFS local snapshots, to check if you have some snapshots on Catalina: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Because I guess the APFS snapshots are linked in some way to time machine of course and to the CMD+R machine internal APFS Recovery.

 

[shadowapple]

Great news, exactly what I've been waiting for. Thanks! Will join the party now with the @ASentientBot method.

"open /System/Library/Extensions/

copy using Finder the IO80211Family.kext from the link attached"

How can I copy the file to the folder? try giving permission but it won't let me.

 

[jackluke]

"open /System/Library/Extensions/

copy using Finder the IO80211Family.kext from the link attached"

How can I copy the file to the folder? try giving permission but it won't let me.

From BigSur terminal: sudo mount -uw / ; killall Finder

if you get an error, you should use the @libneko method, making first an USB BigSur Installer from your "Install macOS beta.app".

 

[shadowapple]

From BigSur terminal: sudo mount -uw / ; killall Finder

if you get an error, you should use the @libneko method, making first an USB BigSur Installer from your "Install macOS beta.app".

Yes, error 66. thanks.

 

[Paulo Andrade]

good night, i'm an amateur in this and i apologize for the two questions. I have a Macbook air 2015 and since the mojave update no longer appears wifi, does anyone know why this problem? Has anyone figured out how to make wifi come back to life in Big Sur?

 

[libneko]

Gathered all the information that I was able to find, in one place, structured: https://lynx.pink/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

Here's the source, if you want to contribute: https://github.com/4ndv/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

 

[andy5026]

Hello,

I am new here and just learning. How can i download the Big Sur installer.app if i don't a "supported Mac". The OTA fix was not working for me. Thanks for any help.

 

[jhowarth]

Gathered all the information that I was able to find, in one place, structured: https://lynx.pink/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

Here's the source, if you want to contribute: https://github.com/4ndv/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

You should make it clear that currently only machines that don't require the LegacyUSBInjector.kext for legacy usb hardware will be installable at the moment.

 

[sonique]

I have same error, start recovery, open terminal and enter "nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check amfi_get_out_of_my_way=1" Then reboot and install will continue.

Thank you for the tip. I'm currently not able to boot, even in recovery mode, it ends up with this -2002F error, I might need to re-install via a USB stick.

 

[Stevenjmay]

Gathered all the information that I was able to find, in one place, structured: https://lynx.pink/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

Here's the source, if you want to contribute: https://github.com/4ndv/big-sur-unsupported-macs-tldr/

Very much appreciated for the efforts Libneko. Well done.

 

[mac_4eva]

I'm extremely confused -- on my first install of BS, it booted from the live volume and could be mounted in Catalina, modified, and those changes would immediately apply. Then I wiped and reinstalled, and now it's got the snapshots, error 66, etc. that most of you experienced. I can't figure out what changed between the two times.

This does show that booting from a live root volume is completely possible, though. If only I can find a way to force that...

Anyone have some insights into this weirdness? I'll report back if I find something, but am thoroughly stumped right now.

All theoretical, but maybe it boots off the live volume if there are no snapshots? To view all snapshots, one can use:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Which does show APFS system snapshots.

But tmutil cannot be used to delete them (the system snapshots). I noticed that /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs_condenser can be used to delete the snapshots but I haven't yet figured out exactly how to use it yet. I think this is the way to use it (or similar):

./apfs_condenser -p disk1s5 -s "SnapshotNameToDelete" -v

Obviously substitute for your live volume, use sudo, etc. For me it errors out.

Edit #1: If you get the EBUSY error, need to unmount the entire container to run this (from Recovery). But getting another error now. It seems to fail hash validation.

Edit #2: Needed to add -i 1 after which hash validation succeeds but another error now.

 

[Kriter]

I found a really easy way to mount the root volume as writable.

Check this guys twitter feed: @EBADTWEET