macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[indiawallah]

For those that use them Safari extensions seem to be working again in Big Sur as I have enabled Pocket which wasn't working for me in Catalina.

 

[TimothyR734]

This may sound stupid but, as stated in step 3, where exactly is located "home folder"? Thanks in advance

[automerge]1593823059[/automerge]

The little home with your name next to it is the home folder

 

[iGMX]

This may sound stupid but, as stated in step 3, where exactly is located "home folder"? Thanks in advance

You shouldn't be doing this if you don't even know where your Home folder is.

 

[quaccOS]

Try this from BigSur normal booting, open terminal:

mount

use "mount" detect the root mount point of your BigSur System (snapshot) example a generic "diskXsYsZ"
"sZ" is a "locked snapshot" (from where you are booting) so you don't write it in next command

sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/diskXsY /Volumes/AnyDiskLabel/AnyEmptyFolder/

AnyDiskLabel is an already mounted disk on your Mac
AnyEmptyFolder is an empty folder that you make on that disk

your non-snapshot System mounted diskXsY should have this mount point:

/Volumes/AnyDiskLabel/BigSurLabel/

(AnyEmptyFolder is your BigSurLabel after used as mount point)

then replace your kext here:

/Volumes/AnyDiskLabel/BigSurLabel/System/Library/Extensions/

(chown and chmod the kext before replace)

after you replaced, if you used the prelinkedkernel method you should use this:

kextcache -i / ; kcditto

then make a new bootable snapshot with embedded patched kext:

bless --folder /Volumes/AnyDiskLabel/BigSurLabel/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

I booted via OpenCore USB…and I have WiFi now! This is before I was going to try your Terminal commands.
It will not boot via default Apple boot picker anymore though – it will crash at start.

WiFi must be working because of your prelinkedkernel file. I still have to fix speakers/mic, display brightness control, graphics acceleration. Everything seems to working as expected
except for menu bar clock which all settings are greyed out for, and if I am logged out if you click the time.
I usually enable 24hr clock & show date in settings.

I am trying your commands, but I don't want to mess up WiFi now that it works, not even sure how it works – but it works. I think I may have misunderstood any disk, any folder etc…

 

[Stevejediknight]

Just wait and WiFi will probably be fixed. If not get a USB wireless adapter. I wouldn’t tear apart an iMac for the wireless card.

Thank you for your response. It’s so right on that I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me. Looking forward to installing this once all of the incredible work here is ironed out.

 

[maxsp97]

Everyone,
Have a Great 4th of July Weekend!

 

[TimothyR734]

Happy 4th of July be safe everyone

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

View attachment 930340

..BUT with @ASentientBot graphic patches in @dosdude1 macOS Big Sur patcher will be PERFECT
I'm ready for all the experiments you need!
[automerge]1593836975[/automerge]

Happy 4th of July be safe everyone

Protect your health, here in Italy the situation finally is better, use face masks everywhere against Covid19 !

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

Date configuration options are disabled on my installation. Another Big Sur bug?

 

[TimothyR734]

Date configuration options are disabled on my installation. Another Big Sur bug?

Possibly macOS Big Sur-Prise

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Possibly macOS Big Sur-Prise

We need to call all Big Sur bugs that.

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

Possibly macOS Big Sur-Prise

By BUG Sur? ?

 

[jackluke]

Got WiFi working on my 2012 MacBook Pro 9,1 by just running 'BigSur prelinkedkernel fix1+2.commands' in a Mojave Terminal. Booted back to the Big Sur partition and bingo. Great job as usual @jackluke, thanks a lot.

IntelHD4000 has Metal acceleration on BigSur, maybe do you reduced the transparency ?
Because in my prelinkedkernel I guess are included stock metal drivers, otherwise I could make another prelinkedkernel with Metal IntelHD4000 drivers, also those machines can use the stock BigSur AppleHDA .
[automerge]1593845773[/automerge]

I booted via OpenCore USB…and I have WiFi now! This is before I was going to try your Terminal commands.
It will not boot via default Apple boot picker anymore though – it will crash at start.

WiFi must be working because of your prelinkedkernel file. I still have to fix speakers/mic, display brightness control, graphics acceleration. Everything seems to working as expected
except for menu bar clock which all settings are greyed out for, and if I am logged out if you click the time.
I usually enable 24hr clock & show date in settings.
View attachment 930443

I am trying your commands, but I don't want to mess up WiFi now that it works, not even sure how it works – but it works. I think I may have misunderstood any disk, any folder etc…
View attachment 930442

From your picture of "mount", in your BigSur terminal the non-snapshot BigSur System is this: disk1s5

For AnyDiskLabel select any already mounted Disk for example from your picture "OpenCore"
For AnyEmptyFolder just make a new empty folder on "OpenCore" USB disk and label that folder "BigSur"

sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes/OpenCore/BigSur/

then you should open /Volumes/OpenCore/YourBigSurSystemLabel/

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

IntelHD4000 has Metal acceleration on BigSur, maybe do you reduced the transparency ?
Because in my prelinkedkernel I guess are included stock metal drivers, otherwise I could make another prelinkedkernel with Metal IntelHD4000 drivers, also those machines can use the stock BigSur AppleHDA .

@jackluke @ASentientBot Could you write a script to try to inject the NVIDIA Geforce 320M kets used in Catalina for Macmini4,1 in BS, too? If I crash BS I will reinstall it on internal SSD for the 8th time
Thank you!


NVIDIA GeForce 320M:





Modello Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 320M


Tipo: GPU


VRAM (totale): 256 MB


Fornitore: NVIDIA (0x10de)


ID dispositivo: 0x08a4


ID revisione: 0x00a2


Revisione ROM: 3546


Monitor:


S24D300:


Risoluzione: 1920 x 1080 (1080p FHD - Full High Definition)


Aspetto interfaccia utente: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz


Profondità buffer fotogrammi: Colore 24 bit (ARGB8888)


Monitor principale: Sì


Duplicazione: Non attiva


In linea: Sì


Rotazione: Supportata


Regola automaticamente la luminosità: No

 

[Fangio]

IntelHD4000 has Metal acceleration on BigSur, maybe do you reduced the transparency ?
Because in my prelinkedkernel I guess are included stock metal drivers, otherwise I could make another prelinkedkernel with Metal IntelHD4000 drivers, also those machines can use the stock BigSur AppleHDA.

Good eye, yes I had 'Reduce Transparency' turned on earlier to see how it looks (not so good imho) and forgot about that when I tried your scripts yesterday. Just turned it off again, Transparency is back in menu bar and dock.

 

[jackluke]

That alternative patched prelinked kernel (which is smaller than the other) doesn't provide functional usb injection. It boots up to the dialog asking to find a bluetooth keyboard because of that issue.

It wasn't properly made so I removed it, about my patched prelinkedkernel, I guess I figure out why the IO80211Family.kext in prelinkedkernel worked for many and doesn't for some, and why AppleHDA.kext doesn't worked for many:

The IO80211Family.kext contains Plugins that are mainly (there also others in previous macOS) AirPortBrcm4331, AirPortBrcm4360 and AirPortBrcmNIC driver, in my prelinkedkernel I can embed only one Plugin (because from the target machine where I build it, Plugins not used are ignored).

AirPortBrcm4331 supports many legacy Wifi Broadcom cards (it also fits for some recent Broadcom cards), AirPortBrcm4360 supports many "Catalina supported Mac" Wifi cards ;
AirPortBrcmNIC supports all the "BigSur supported Mac" or Broadcom Wifi ac cards (they dropped the Wifi n).

I can't embed in my prelinkedkernel the stock AirPortBrcmNIC because I don't have any machine with such recent Broadcom Wifi cards (maybe I could make another prelinkedkernel for AirPortBrcm4360 instead).

The Wifi kext can override a BigSur stock Wifi driver because it contains only the Plugin AirPortBrcmNIC, so any other previous Plugin are correctly added from the prelinkedkernel.

Instead About AppleHDA.kext to make it working the prelinkedkernel needs to find a kext matching mach-o UUID on your BigSur System Volume at /System/Library/Extensions/

so anyone should replace the stock BigSur AppleHDA.kext with an HighSierra one.

 

[Larsvonhier]

View attachment 930340

Well, on MB4,1 we have the same (technically forced) situation due to x3100 GPU for years. Also the debate about it (here) is as old as we got Mojave running on it - that´s why @0403979 included support for the machine in his patcher as @dosdude1 did not have it in his list of machines. With help from his side even the APFS Rom patch can be made on the MB4,1 (without the NVidia chipset risk of screwing up).
Even without acceleration, this system with i.e. Mojave was far more "useable" than with the last fully supported macOS. I actually know a few users that do daily work on it as their sole machine (Word, browsing, telebanking) and enjoy the modern apps and security on it.

But clearly, on any other system full GPU acceleration is preferred and we should continue striving to get OpenGL up and running.

 

[Larsvonhier]

To use properly my patched prelinkedkernel , SIP needs to be properly disabled with "csrutil disable" (non-APFS Mac can surely do this through the El Capitan firmware) from a Recovery environment (I do this with USBopencore), while "csrutil authenticated-root disable" is not mandatory (even if useful), but the classic SIP must be disabled (and I guess AMFI too) otherwise the patched kext embedded in the prelinkedkernel cannot override the BigSur Extensions as AppleHDA and IO80211Family .

There´s also a completely OS-agnostic way to set/reset SIP:
It can be done by booting into a rEFIt USB stick or CD on any machine, even if you start without having any (working) OS.

 

[Athanti]

After using BigSur prelinkedkernel fix+2 Igot wifi on my MBP 8.2.
Then I tried to log in my apple account and when asked from Find My Mac it logout and after that I cannot log in, I have continuous logout
Do we have any solution for the logouts?

 

[Luki1979]

You will need Bluetooth 4, wifi ac and Graphics acceleration for some services to work. That’s why installing Big Sur on anything else than 2012 metal capable machines or upgraded Mac Pro is pointless.

 

[jackluke]

@Fangio and others who have a "Catalina supported Mac" but "Big Sur unsupported Mac", if you haven't yet fixed AirDrop, try this new attached "prelinkedkernel fix AirDrop beta1".

This should enable Wifi 802.11n with AirDrop channel even on a sealed BigSur System snapshot volume booting.

To launch hold ctrl key and click open to skip the unidentified developer message.

Note: currently this prelinkedkernel fix is only for those who have an AirPortBrcm4360 capable Wifi card and an official apple APFS firmware machine with an embedded Bluetooth 4.0 .

edit:
If you want to run this fix directly from BigSur use instead the "AirDrop fix2 beta1" also attached at bottom.

 

[Stevejediknight]

I have the same iMac and got WiFi working following this tutorial: macOS Big Sur Installation + WiFi on unsupported macs

Thanks for the link. I will look into it.

 

[jhowarth]

It wasn't properly made so I removed it, about my patched prelinkedkernel, I guess I figure out why the IO80211Family.kext in prelinkedkernel worked for many and doesn't for some, and why AppleHDA.kext doesn't worked for many:

The IO80211Family.kext contains Plugins that are mainly (there also others in previous macOS) AirPortBrcm4331, AirPortBrcm4360 and AirPortBrcmNIC driver, in my prelinkedkernel I can embed only one Plugin (because from the target machine where I build it, Plugins not used are ignored).

AirPortBrcm4331 supports many legacy Wifi Broadcom cards (it also fits for some recent Broadcom cards), AirPortBrcm4360 supports many "Catalina supported Mac" Wifi cards ;
AirPortBrcmNIC supports all the "BigSur supported Mac" or Broadcom Wifi ac cards (they dropped the Wifi n).

I can't embed in my prelinkedkernel the stock AirPortBrcmNIC because I don't have any machine with such recent Broadcom Wifi cards (maybe I could make another prelinkedkernel for AirPortBrcm4360 instead).

The Wifi kext can override a BigSur stock Wifi driver because it contains only the Plugin AirPortBrcmNIC, so any other previous Plugin are correctly added from the prelinkedkernel.

Instead About AppleHDA.kext to make it working the prelinkedkernel needs to find a kext matching mach-o UUID on your BigSur System Volume at /System/Library/Extensions/

so anyone should replace the stock BigSur AppleHDA.kext with an HighSierra one.

Replacing AppleHDA.kext seems to be the rub as there appears to be some non-deterministic behavior on whether a kext installed in LE or even the one embedded in a prelinked kernel always wins out against those in SLE despite having a hacked boot.efi.

I suspect that the only real fix will be to get authenticated-root disabled on the unsupported machine so that the competing kext in SLE can be replaced with one from an earlier macOS release. I took a stab at using the prelinked kernel with legacy usb support, that works on a MacPro 3,1 under Big Sur, to replace the one on a Big Sur install usb stick. Unfortunately, when it boots, I get animated mouse, etc graphics indicating that a keyboard couldn't be found preventing me from using the Terminal there to set 'csrutil authenticated-root disable'.

Also, has anyone actually disabled authenticated-root on an unsupported machine? That is, are we sure that disabling that doesn't require some enhancements only presenting in the most recent upgraded boot roms from Apple.

 

[jackluke]

Replacing AppleHDA.kext seems to be the rub as there appears to be some non-deterministic behavior on whether a kext installed in LE or even the one embedded in a prelinked kernel always wins out against those in SLE despite having a hacked boot.efi.

I suspect that the only real fix will be to get authenticated-root disabled on the unsupported machine so that the competing kext in SLE can be replaced with one from an earlier macOS release. I took a stab at using the prelinked kernel with legacy usb support, that works on a MacPro 3,1 under Big Sur, to replace the one on a Big Sur install usb stick. Unfortunately, when it boots, I get animated mouse, etc graphics indicating that a keyboard couldn't be found preventing me from using the Terminal there to set 'csrutil authenticated-root disable'.

Also, has anyone actually disabled authenticated-root on an unsupported machine? That is, are we sure that disabling that doesn't require some enhancements only presenting in the most recent upgraded boot roms from Apple.

The USB BigSur installer seems to require only the BootKernelExtensions.kc , with prelinkedkernel fix doesn't work, if you notice /BaseSystem/BaseSystem.dmg now it's an APFS Container with its own Preboot Volume.

 

[jackluke]

I just tested these AirDrop fixes that I pre-patched for Catalina: AirDrop fixes for some Broadcom Wifi cards

and they still work also on BigSur, I understand that having AirDrop on a BigSur Finder with a non-metal BigSur mac isn't a priority, but the fixes still work (picture attached).

Of course you need an unsealed BigSur System volume to install them, they work also when using BootKernelExtensions.kc .