macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[macsba]

This post was done on an external drive running macOS Big Sur using an iMac 2017. I'll be trying Big Sur on a 2012 Mac Mini later.

Just one little note, the installer took about 1.5 hours for the installation.
The external drive is a Seagate 2 TB HD.

 

[Minh_Ton]

When you get a chance can you please post a link to the discord server?
Thanks,
Payne

Join the Unsupported Macs Discord Server!

Need help with running modern macOS on your old mac? This is the place for you. | 18764 members

discord.gg

 

[Marco4957]

Got it running on a late 2011 13" MacBook Pro even the magic trackpad works. Although as predicted HW accel isn't present neither is Wifi.

 

[riverschristian93]

Really hoping my 2012 Unibody MBP is supported but that's unlikely. Guess I'll join the unsupported club!

It is not officially supported. I already checked with apple support. It will only be mid 2013 and later MBP.

 

[freqrider]

As I understand that all depends on how Rosetta 2 and the Virtualization Module (which was briefly shown running Linux) will handle these things.

it’s apparently running on 5,1 with OpenCore.

 

[Payne Mononymous Bachman]

Join the Unsupported Macs Discord Server!

Need help with running modern macOS on your old mac? This is the place for you. | 18764 members

discord.gg

Thanks for the link.

 

[freqrider]

This thread will be used to discuss advancements in getting macOS 11 Big Sur running on unsupported Macs.

---

Possibly the new home for pre 2013 Macs. 🖥 💻

apparently it’s running on 5,1 with OpenCore.

 

[Nikita Razinkov]

macOS 11.0 beta has acceleration on Mid 2012 13" Macbook Pro, only thing not working is wifi (should be a simple fix) View attachment 926227

I don't get it, there's no reason for Apple to drop support for these older machines when Big Sur runs just fine and does not demand anything that the hardware can't handle.
I get why they dropped support for open GL but if this works and meets the requirements of Big Sur (technically speaking), then what's the point unnecessarily dropping support for machines that work just fine.

 

[TimothyR734]

Link in the first page here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-15-catalina-on-unsupported-macs.2183772/

 

[vinaypundith]

I have a Mid 2010 White Macbook and am willing to participate in testing.
When will the patcher become available?
@Marco4957 how did you get it installed? Is the patcher available?
Eager to try it out!

 

[n0rt0nthecat]

Tried in VMware Fusion 11.5.5 and 12 Tech preview but the installer stops with "BIErrorDomain Error 3" when trying to select the existing 10.15 install to upgrade

 

[Nikita Razinkov]

Great, so the moment macOS finally gets a design change and I'm super hyped to try it out, I find out that my 27 inch Late 2013 iMac has been ruled out from the fun, amazing.

it's likely that they will re-add support for the late 2013 iMacs

 

[toru173]

Hey! I figured out kext loading and got the nVidia Tesla framebuffer (including brightness and sleep) working. The annoying part is it doesn't work in single-user mode since kmutil has to talk to some daemon...

sudo mount -uw /
# copy in the kexts as usual, unchanged from Catalina
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions
sudo kmutil install --update-all # other than this command, it's basically the same
sudo kcditto

Now time to work on real acceleration.

Good work! Is it worth pulling apart kmutil to find it’s dependencies? That way we can launchctl load them.

Edit: spelling!

 

[Marco4957]

I loaded the HD3000 kexts although still no HW Acel. Night Shift and Brightness control is working and it successfuly detects the HD3000.

 

[PiggyGamingYT3]

@Marco4957 How did you get it running? I have that exact Mac model

 

[ian87w]

Seems like 2012 Macs are dropped, and I believe many are still using those. Ka-ching?
This is why I dislike Apple computers. Arbitrary dropping off from OS support despite the device itself is still perfectly capable. In contrast, Windows 10 is able to be installed even on old machines.

Downside of switching to ARM, now there's no Windows option to extend the life of these older Macs (unless Microsoft announced Windows 10 ARM will support Apple silicon). Just like an iPhone, when Apple dropped your computer from support, that's it. It seems acceptable for phones, but for laptops and desktops, seems unreasonable. Most people don't need the latest performance, with even 10 year old computers still sufficient for many.

 

[TimothyR734]

I have a Mid 2010 White Macbook and am willing to participate in testing.
When will the patcher become available?
@Marco4957 how did you get it installed? Is the patcher available?
Eager to try it out!

dosdude is away for a few days or so and will begin working on the patcher just be patient

 

[Marco4957]

@Marco4957 How did you get it running? I have that exact Mac model

It would be way better for you to wait. I just know what I am doing. (I am trying to contribute so you guys can have the patcher )

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

AVX2 is not required for macOS 11 because the Ivy Bridge CPU of the still supported 2013 Mac Pro doesn't have it.

I've been thinking about whether the 2013 Mac Pro's Ivy Bridge CPU might be different from the others in some way... and it turns out, it is! CVE-2020-0543 (SRBDS) affects most Ivy Bridge CPUs, but not the Xeon E5 series used by the 2013 Mac Pro. For this CVE, Intel provided microcode updates for Haswell and later, but not Ivy Bridge.

Perhaps Apple doesn't want to officially support Macs that have Intel CPU flaws which (more or less) cannot be mitigated. For all I know (since I'm not a lawyer), this could be some legally driven thing. By the way, this would also explain why Apple decided not to officially support Catalina on the 2012 Mac Pro. In that case, the vulnerability was Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS).

This still doesn't explain the Late 2013 iMacs, but with that one exception, Apple's choice of models they're supporting in Big Sur now appears to me to be logically consistent and not arbitrary. The goal seems to me to be: avoid supporting Mac models with known unmitigated Intel CPU flaws in any new macOS release. (I almost wrote "support all Macs without known unmitigated Intel CPU flaws as of the OS's release date" but in reality it's probably a little more complicated than that, even if that is basically the result in the end.)

 

[redking31591]

I've been thinking about whether the 2013 Mac Pro's Ivy Bridge CPU might be different from the others in some way... and it turns out, it is! CVE-2020-0543 (SRBDS) affects most Ivy Bridge CPUs, but not the Xeon E5 series used by the 2013 Mac Pro. For this CVE, Intel provided microcode updates for Haswell and later, but not Ivy Bridge.

Perhaps Apple doesn't want to officially support Macs that have Intel CPU flaws which (more or less) cannot be mitigated. For all I know (since I'm not a lawyer), this could be some legally driven thing. By the way, this would also explain why Apple decided not to officially support Catalina on the 2012 Mac Pro. In that case, the vulnerability was Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS).

This still doesn't explain the Late 2013 iMacs, but with that one exception, Apple's choice of models they're supporting in Big Sur now appears to me to be logically consistent and not arbitrary. The goal seems to me to be: avoid supporting Mac models with known unmitigated Intel CPU flaws in any new macOS release. (I almost wrote "support all Macs without known unmitigated Intel CPU flaws as of the OS's release date" but in reality it's probably a little more complicated than that, even if that is basically the result in the end.)

Leaving out the one model, the 2013 iMac, also has some prior precedent. When Apple announced Handoff, it required a 2012 or forward Mac with Bluetooth 4.0. The 2011 MacBook Air and Mac mini both shipped with BT 4.0 and when someone tweaked a file, worked perfectly with Handoff. Apple likely wanted a clean "2012 and forward" for the feature, instead of "2012 and forward for everything except these two specific 2011 models". In this case they maybe wanted "x years forward" and not "x years forward except these specific iMac model, they're good".

 

[Macbookprodude]

Thanks for the link. Yes, Windows 10 runs on ARM PCs, like Microsoft's Surface Pro X, so it should run fine on Apple Silicon based Macs. So those who Boot Camp should have nothing to fear. The Boot Camp utility is still present in Big Sur.

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My mistake, I did not know Windows supports ARM, so bootcamp should not be an issue on the new "PowerPC like ARM macs"

 

[haralds]

Tried in VMware Fusion 11.5.5 and 12 Tech preview but the installer stops with "BIErrorDomain Error 3" when trying to select the existing 10.15 install to upgrade View attachment 926316

You need to install on a host that officially support macOS Big Sur. Doing that right now. Will see whether I can transplant the resulting VM to a non supporting 5,1.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Thanks for the link.

Currently using a PowerPC Mac to access this - The link just shows a smiley face. Should I be on an intel mac to access this cvha

I loaded the HD3000 kexts although still no HW Acel. Night Shift and Brightness control is working and it successfuly detects the HD3000.

Without acceleration, it will suck running it.

 

[revmouse]

Waiting eagerly for the patcher with my Early 2011 17" Macbook Pro (faulty radeon gpu desoldered and bypassed, intel graphics only)

 

[ChefBapeSupreme]

I have a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 with an 8gb Sapphire RX580 gpu with metal support currently running Mojave. It should be able to run Catalina by simply installing a patcher. At that point, would it be possible to upgrade to Big Sur via patcher, assuming one can be made?

It's so stupid that Apple has cut support on these machines especially since they are significantly more powerful and capable than the majority of the 2013 computers they are continuing to support. Apple should cut support on macs like they do on iPhones. Support should only be cut when the device no longer has the hardware needed to run the operating system. I should not have to downgrade to a less capable but newer mac just to get the latest operating system Apple has to offer.

Anyway, if anyone has any idea if a Big Sur patcher is possible for a Mac Pro 5,1, let me know. And if not, any suggestions on what to upgrade to would be helpful aswell.