1. Aug 25, 2021 The macOS 11, which goes by the name Big Sur, comes with a newer user interface and menu bars, redesigning icons and other features. It is better than macOS 10.15, Catalina, due to its powerful improvement and new features. However, Apple dropped various Mac versions, making installation of macOS 11 on unsupported Macs almost impossible.
2. The era of Mac OS X is over. Macs compatible with macOS Big Sur (macOS 11): 2015 and later MacBook; 2013 and later MacBook Air; Late 2013 and later MacBook Pro; 2014 and later iMac; 2017 and later iMac Pro; 2014 and later Mac mini; 2013 and later Mac Pro; And Accordingly, the following models capable of running macOS Catalina will not be able to be upgraded to macOS Big Sur.

In this video, i am going to show you how to install the final version of macos big sur on an unsupported mac (2008 2013)useful links:the patcher's site (mos. In this video, i am going to show you how to install the latest version of macos big sur (11.2) on an unsupported mac (2010 2013)link to the patcher (shout o.

Everyone's favourite text editor has been updated.BBEdit 14 requires Mac OS X 10.14.2 or later, and is compatible with macOS 10.15 'Catalina' and macOS 11 'Big Sur'. Native on Macs with the M1 processor

What's New

Anaconda Virtual Environments - Anaconda is particularly popular with data scientists, as well as with others who need to rapidly switch between different tooling and library configurations. BBEdit 14 will use conda or miniconda to detect your virtual environments, and provides a mechanism for switching the active environment for use when running Unix tools and scripts from within BBEdit.

New Built-In Languages - BBEdit 14 adds built-in syntax coloring and function navigation support for Go, R, Rust, Lisp-family languages (Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure), and Pixar Universal Scene Description (USD) text files.

Enhanced Developer Features - BBEdit 14 enables several new features and significant improvements to its built-in coding aids for developers, including:

Enhanced language-specific text completions;Improved Find Definition;Assistance for specifying function parameters;New code-navigation features;In-window highlighting of syntax and semantic issues;Language-specific document reformatting.These feature improvements are the result of new built-in support for the Language Server Protocol ('LSP') by which user-installed local 'language servers' implement key language-sensitive behaviors. Specific available features may vary by language and by server.

Full details are here.

XQuartz 2.8.0 was released for macOS 10.9 or later a couple of weeks ago.

I've now upgraded two machines (one Big Sur the other Catalina) and so far I've not had any issues.

This release also supports Apple Silicon.

Docker is now available for M1 machines

The release note can be found here https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/release-notes/

and you download it here.

Apparent MarvinSketch is freezing under Big Sur, This problem is caused by a change in tab behavior in Big Sur. Newly opened dialogs are handled as tabs by default now. The issue can be solved by changing the tab preferences of the system.

Details are here https://chemaxon.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/43000613604-marvinsketch-freezes-on-macos-big-sur.

There are more details of Scientific Applications Under Big Sur here.

The full CSD software portfolio, including Mercury, ConQuest, Mogul, GOLD, CSD-CrossMiner, the CSD Python API and other components, has now been upgraded and tested for compatibility with Big Sur. We are pleased to report that the newly available 2020.3.1 CSD Release (only available on macOS) is fully supported on macOS Big Sur at point of release, both for Intel-based macs, as well as the newer M1 Apple silicon based macs. At this point we are aware of just two specific known issues for the newer silicon hardware machines:

• The POV-Ray integration in Mercury for high-resolution graphics generation does not work on M1 Apple silicon based macs
• The Aromatics Analyser component in the CSD-Materials menu of Mercury does not work on M1 Apple silicon based macsWe expect that these final remaining issues will be addressed in the next CSD software release.

Full details are here https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/solutions/whats-new/.

More details on scientific applications under Big Sur are here https://www.macinchem.org/blog/files/1fd84c61d3f91608c1b9c413c8064cd4-2692.php

Schrödinger have just announced the release of the latest update.

This release fully supports macOS 11, Big Sur, (with previous releases of the suite remaining unsupported on Big Sur).

Computers running ARM64-based processors such as the Apple M1 chip are unsupported.

I've just updated the Fortran on a Mac page.

In particular

gfortran for ARM Big Sur (macOS 11.0) and Apple Silicon.

NAG Fortran compiler Fortran compiler for Apple Silicon Macs now available to download. Available on Linux, Windows and macOS, including Apple Silicon Macs.

Absoft Pro Fortran 2021 For macOS and OS X. Fully compatible with macOS Big Sur (11.0).

pro Fit pro Fit 7 is now at version 7.0.18, supporting dark mode, Catalina, and Big Sur.

pro Fit is a macOS application for data/function analysis, plotting, and curve fitting. It is used by scientists, engineers and students to analyze their measurements and the mathematical models they use to describe them.

Highlights:

• Data windows for storing and analyzing data
• Drawing windows for plots and other graphics
• Function windows for user defined functions
• Write your own functions and scripts using Python or Pascal
• Numerous Curve Fitting Algorithms:
• Levenberg-Marquardt, Robust, Multi-dimensional
• High resolution, high quality drawings and graphs
• Full PDF support for exporting figures
• Big Sur and Retina Support

There is a comprehensive list of scientific applications under Big Sur here

A couple of folks have asked me about running Mathematica on Apple Silicon. I don't use Mathematica but the system compatibility is on their website.

Mathematica 12.2 is optimized for the latest operating systems and hardware.

Latest update from Microsoft

We are excited to announce that starting today we are releasing new versions of many of our Microsoft 365 for Mac apps that run natively on Macs with M1. This means that now our core flagship Office apps—Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote—will run faster and take full advantage of the performance improvements on new Macs, making you even more productive on the latest MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. The new Office apps are Universal, so they will continue to run great on Macs with Intel processors. The apps are not only speedy, but they also look fantastic as they have been redesigned to match the new look of macOS Big Sur. Here is a peek at Outlook on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

More details here.

First let me say I’m not a big Fortran user but any blog posts about Fortran always seem to be very popular, and the Fortran on a Mac page is one of the most popular pages.

I've been sent these details of fortran compilers that might be of interest.

NAG Fortran compiler Fortran compiler for Apple Silicon Macs now available to download.

Absoft Absoft Pro Fortran 2021 For macOS and OS X Fully compatible with macOS Big Sur (11.0).

Computation Tools :: C/Fortran On the HPC Mac OSX page, Compiled using source code from the GNU servers.

gfortran 11-experimental for ARM Big Sur (macOS 11.0).

General Issues with Big Sur

If you want an overview of Big Sur I'd recommend the excellent arstechnica review.

Apple has officially confirmed that the following Macs are compatible with Big Sur.

• MacBook (2015 or newer)
• MacBook Air (2013 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
• Mac mini (2014 or newer)
• iMac (2014 or newer)
• iMac Pro (2017)
• Mac Pro (2013 and later)

In addition there is issue of the new Apple Silicon Macs with the new Apple M1 chip, if there is specific information about the new machines I've included it.

Snazzy Labs has an interesting commentary on the new Apple Silicon machines and promises a in depth technical review of all 3 models they have on order. The first reviews on Apple Silicon are now in

Scientific Applications

I've contacted all developers I know and their responses to date are shown below.

4-Peaks no known issues

Absoft Absoft Pro Fortran 2021 For macOS and OS X Fully compatible with macOS Big Sur (11.0)

alvaDesc We tested all our products and all of them work properly on MacOS Big Sur.

Amsterdam Modeling Suite As we only just finished our 2020 release our developers didn't dare switching to Big Sur yet. I can try on my own macbook shortly.

Anaconda seems to be working fine.

APE make sure you download the 64-bit version

Avogadro Been running Big Sur betas for a while - everything works. The next beta of Avogadro v2 will have some interface tweaks that are more noticeable on Big Sur (e.g., warning dialogs changed to be Mac-native). Don't yet have universal binaries, but working on it for Open Babel and Avogadro v2 betas (e.g. 1.94). Should still work fine on Apple Silicon computers.

BBEdit version 13 is compatible with macOS Big Sur. BBEdit 13.5 adds support for Apple Silicon

Brainsight macOS 11 Big Sur is coming out very soon, but do not upgrade your Mac yet, because Brainsight is not yet compatible with Big Sur

ChemAxon Most of our software in general requires Java, so as long as the appropriate Java version is installed, there should be no problem.

ChemDraw current version products (ChemDraw Professional 20.0.0.48 and ChemDraw Prime 20.0.0.48) supported with Mac OSX Catalina (v20.0 qualified with Mac OS 11.0 Beta)

ChemDoodle “The latest versions of ChemDoodle 2D (v11) and ChemDoodle 3D (v6) are fully supported on macOS Big Sur (macOS 10.16/11.0) and there are no known issues. In addition to supporting the operating system update, ARM based Macs (like those just released with the new Apple Silicon chip) are also fully supported for ChemDoodle 2D and ChemDoodle 3D with no known issues.'

Conquest and Mercury from CCDC The full CSD software portfolio, including Mercury, ConQuest, Mogul, GOLD, CSD-CrossMiner, the CSD Python API and other components, has been tested and is not currently compatible with macOS Big Sur. Please note that our upcoming 2020.3 CSD Release will not be compatible with macOS Big Sur at point of release. We are working hard on a series of improvements to make our software portfolio compatible and fully supported, which we will make available to users as an update as soon as possible. In the meantime, a number of enhancements have been made to our products to simplify the configuration of and support specifically on macOS platforms. Examples are the removal of XQuartz as a dependency and removal of the need to run an X windows display for full use of the CSD Python API. These enhancements will be incorporated in future CSD software releases.'

Cresset testing underway

CrystalMaker Works swimmingly! We’ve tested all our software on Big Sur - including a machine with Apple Silicon - and are happy to confirm full compatibility for CrystalMaker 10.5.5, SingleCrystal 4.1.0 and CrystalDiffract 6.8.5. Free updates to CrystalMaker 10.5.5 and SingleCrystal 4.1.0 were released yesterday morning and are recommended for anyone using “Big Sur”.

We are also very-pleased to announce the immediate availability of CrystalMaker 10.6 for Mac, SingleCrystal 4.1 and CrystalDiffract 10.9 for Apple Silicon: these are Universal Binaries and provide 100% native performance on the new Apple Silicon Macs, as well as 100% native performance on Intel.

As one of the vanishingly-few Mac science developers left, we’re proud of our reputation of developing genuine, native Mac apps. We’ve been doing this for over 25 years now and this is our fourth Mac hardware platform! (we’ve gone from Motorola 68K to PowerPC to Intel and now to Apple Silicon).

CYLView 1.0 does not work under Catalina.

DataWarrior Seems to be working fine.

Delta We are working on an update for Delta and will post it as soon as it is available.

DEVONagent fine under Big Sur on Intel, not tested on Apple Silicon.

DEVONthink fine under Big Sur on Intel, not tested on Apple Silicon.

Elemental Fine under Big Sur and on Apple Silicon

EndNote We are in the process of testing and we will be updating our Compatibility page once our testing is complete. Users report no issues on Intel.

EnzymeX no issues reported

EverNote is compatible with Big Sur

Findings no issues reported

Fujitsu ScanSnap .

Gaussaian As far as we can tell so far, both of our current releases, Gaussian 16 rev. C.01 and GaussView 6.1.1 for macOS 64-bit Intel CPUs, run normally on macOS Big Sur. We do not have any reports of problems so far.We do not have a native port for Apple Silicon chips for either G16 or GaussView 6. However, for now, both of the Intel binaries that I mentioned above should run on Apple Silicon using Rosetta 2. We have not done full certification on the Apple Silicon at this point but Apple claims that Rosetta 2 should be capable of handling running existing binaries for Intel chips.

Highlights The PDF Reader for Research, updated for Big Sur with version 2020.3. Big Sur also fixes an annoying issue from PDFKit on Catalina where superscript text (e.g. citations) would break text selection.

Homebrew For most seems to work fine, remember to reinstall Xcode command line tools.

All the ICM products are compatible with Big Sur:

• ICM-Chemist and ICM-Chemist Pro

Other products that are compatible include:

Igor Pro Igor Pro 8.04 is the first version of Igor that is notarized and includes notarized WaveMetrics XOPs. We therefore recommend that you run Igor Pro 8.04 if you are using macOS 10.15 or macOS 11.0.

KNIME We are testing the upcoming version 4.3 of KNIME Analytics Platform against Big Sur and plan to have it supported by the time we do that release in the first week of December.

Manuscripts no issues reported

Matlab MATLAB is compatible with macOS 11 (Big Sur) from release R2020b onwards, support for Apple Silicon is in development

Mathematica no issues for latest version. system requirements

Mendeley no issues reported

Microsoft Office Microsoft has announced that Office 365 is ready for Big Sur - Apple Silicon M1 Macs will use Rosetta 2 for now

Mnova The current version of Mnova LiteCDE is compatible with MacOS Big Sur

NAG Fortran compiler Fortran compiler for Apple Silicon Macs now available to download

MOE Our initial tests showed no issues with this version.

ODYSSEY Molecular Explorer version 6 looks good.

Papers no issues reported

Parallels Parallels 16 is ready for Big Sur. Older Parallels Desktop versions only partially support working on macOS Big Sur due to technical reasons may experience issues depending on the configuration.

pro Fit pro Fit 7 is now at version 7.0.18, supporting dark mode, Catalina, and Big Sur.

PYMOL On Intel Macs with macOS 11, PyMOL works fine, no known issues.We have not tested Apple Silicon (M1) yet.

Python Python 2.7 is no longer included - use Python 3 insteadPython works fine on Apple Silicon and is 'mad fast!'.

QMForge 2.4 does not support Big Sur yet

R The front page of a CRAN site has a link ‘Download R for (Mac) OS X’. Click on that, then download the file R-4.0.3.pkg and install it. This runs on macOS 10.13 and later on Intel CPU20 (High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, …).

RDKit All seems fine (Note: -Python 2.7 is no longer supported - use Python 3 instead)

Macos 11 Big Sur On Unsupported Macs Windows 7

Samson SAMSON 2020 R3 (the latest release) works on Big Sur.

Schrodinger Upgrading to macOS 11 will cause existing Schrödinger Suite releases to fail to run. We are hard at work to address this incompatibility and expect to extend support to macOS 11 in an upcoming Schrödinger Suite release

SeeSAR now updated to support Big Sur.

Sketch With version 70 release, we’re excited to introduce a UI redesign that fits right in with the new macOS Big Sur design language. It’s the same Sketch you know and love, but with every detail reconsidered — from a full-height sidebar, to a refreshed Inspector, and all-new iconography throughout the app.

Spartan There are a few interface issues, tab highlighting on selection is unreliable, not a showstopper but irritating.

SPSS The current release IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0.1 and the current IBM SPSS Statistics Subscription release build 1.0.0.0.1447 will run on MAC OSX 11 Big Sur in translation mode.

Stardrop We haven't yet completed a full test cycle, but we have not seen any issues and don't anticipate any.

Swiss-PdbViewer Swiss-PdbViewer is a 32 bits application and will * NOT * run.

TensorFlow and TensorFlow Addons This pre-release delivers hardware-accelerated TensorFlow and TensorFlow Addons for macOS 11.0+. Native hardware acceleration is supported on Macs with M1 and Intel-based Macs through Apple’s ML Compute framework.

UCSF Chimera ChimeraX v1.1 does not work on MacOS 11.0 (Big Sur), but this problem has been fixed in v1.1.1 and the daily build.

UCSF ChimeraX works on 10.14, 10.15, and 11.0 (Big Sur).

VMD there interface issues under Big Sur

VMWare In preparation for the next major version of macOS 11.0 Big Sur, VMware has made full use of Apple’s hypervisor and other APIs, removing the need for kernel extensions and supporting macOS 11 as both host and guest.

Vortex Vortex works perfectly on Intel Macs under Big Sur, and on Apple Silicon

Wizard In general works fine, some issue with older work books.

Xcode need to update to latest version. Remember to reinstall command line tools

XQuartz OpenGL and OpenCL are still here, even on Apple Silicon Macs

I’ll add more updates later, feel free to contact me and thanks for the comments to date.

Last update 17 January 2021

Python 3.9.1 has been released this now supports Apple Silicon (M1 chip).

Installer news3.9.1 is the first version of Python to support macOS 11 Big Sur. With Xcode 11 and later it is now possible to build “Universal 2” binaries which work on Apple Silicon. We are providing such an installer as the macos11.0 variant. This installer can be deployed back to older versions, tested down to OS X 10.9. As we are waiting for an updated version of pip, please consider the macos11.0 installer experimental. This work would not have been possible without the effort of Ronald Oussoren, Ned Deily, and Lawrence D’Anna from Apple. Thank you!

Also note macOS ARM builds on conda-forge, and clang compilers for conda-build 3 https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/clang_osx-arm64

CrystalMaker Software Ltd are pleased to confirm that as of today, all our Mac software runs natively on “Apple Silicon” (as well as older, Intel-based Macs) - i.e., they are “Universal Binaries”.

• CrystalMaker 10.6 for Mac: an award-winning program for building, visualizing and understanding all kinds of crystal & molecular structures (and the only real, genuine, native Mac program for crystal structures).

• CrystalDiffract 10.9 for Mac: x-ray and neutron powder diffraction made easy.

• SingleCrystal 4.1 for Mac: the latest iteration of our Apple Design Award-winning program for simulating single-crystal diffraction, auto-indexing observed TEM diffraction patterns, and working with stereographic projections of planes and vectors.

Learn more by visiting their website at: http://crystalmaker.com.

You are probably aware that this fall, like every single fall season, the pumpkin spice latte new macOS version will be available to install. However, this year, Apple chose to do things differently.

macOS Big Sur

First thing first, the version number. Yes, we are now looking at macOS 11, after roughly 20 years of macOS 10/Mac OS X incremental updates. Why change now? Well, with the release of this new version which will be available on Apple Silicon-based Macs and which introduces a totally new design, Apple taught it was time.

Weirdly (not really), I tend to agree with that. Indeed, I've now spent most of my life on version 10. That makes me think I still have the CD for Mac OS 9 somewhere and that I should take my first computer ever — the iMac G4 from 2000 — for a spin sometime... just for fun.

Yet, that is not the only thing Apple decided to innovate on: making perfectly working older Macs obsolete seems to be one of the new features brought by this version. Yikes.

My iMac late-2012

I am actually writing this article on this iMac. Yup, that's an eight years old device still standing perfectly here — accounting for the external SSD I'm running macOS from. I can remember myself saving the money for it for years and then finally going to the store with my mother, picking an iMac from the aisle, buying Microsoft Office like a dumba-- with it and unboxing it at home... with no Internet connection whatsoever. Anyway.

The fact is, this machine has serious specs that are still relevant to this day. Indeed, my iMac is equiped with:

• an Intel Core i5 Quad-Core @ 2.7 GHz;
• 8GB of DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz;
• a 128GB external Samsung M.2 SSD connected via USB-3 with macOS installed on it;
• an NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M graphics card with 512MB of VRAM (yes, yes, NVIDIA graphics, in a Mac, what a world).

I was then rightfully persuaded while watching the WWDC20, with my specs in mind, that my Mac, will, once again receive this new version, as it did with macOS Catalina. But oh boi was I wrong... Several hours later, articles started to pop out of nowhere saying my iMac (in addition to my Apple Watch Series 2 and AirPods 1st-gen) was now obsolete and stuck on macOS Catalina.

Unacceptable (!), I taught. But then, I remembered that some people were running the current version on already obsolete machines. So I began to search... and was I reassured by the dozens of Mac-afficionados already running the macOS Big Sur beta1 on their unsupported MacBooks and Mac Minis.

The trick

Well then, with all those people already installing the beta on their unsupported Macs, I started to work on it for mine. Without spoiling you the ending, I was not expecting for it to work as well as it does (remember, I'm using it right now).

The basic principle of this 'hack' is to disable the verification of the system done by the installer and ideally force the installation by disabling some security aspects of macOS and adding a new library in the process that will help us achieve our goal.

If you follow very simple instructions, the end of the installation is pretty straightforward: in fact you will in the end be doing the same thing you would have been if your Mac had been compatible to start with.

Those additional steps done, some reboots, and an hour elapsed... et voilà! You are now rocking the last version of macOS (still in beta, remember) on your obsolete system.

As you can see in the screenshots above, first, it's really late, and second, everything works like a charm. From Maps, a Catalyst version of an iPad app, to the new System Preferences... all is great, great is all! The revamped notification center and widgets section, as well as the new control center are also all there for us to enjoy... without having spent any more money on it.

Let's get right to it then!

The catch (and how to fix it)

Before we go, you should know that your mileage may vary depending on which device you are following this tutorial with. Indeed, while some of them will have everything working as expected, most of them will lack support for Wi-Fi on macOS Big Sur...

Macos 11 Big Sur On Unsupported Macs

Not to worry, though. The Mac community and the wonderful people participating on the MacRumors forums have seen worse! This is nothing a little patching can't fix. I'd like to thank libneko, jackluke and Andrey Viktorov for their insightful contributions on how to fix the Wi-Fi and his experience. I wouldn't have macOS Big Sur and working Wi-Fi on my iMac if it wasn't for them and other members of this forum.

In such manner, you'd be happy to know that my iMac is ready to roll on the latest version for at least another update cycle — with all functions working properly. If you too, you are experiencing the failed with 66 error or want to fix you Wi-Fi on macOS Big Sur, make sure to jump to step 10 or follow the entire tutorial below.

Also, just a little reminder that this tutorial is intented for Macs that are currently running macOS Catalina (10.15).

November 17th: Since the official launch of macOS Big Sur, more people are trying to follow this tutorial that was previously meant for the beta version. Thanks to some of you who gave me feedback by email, you might have some more luck with the Micropatcher if the following tutorial fails... Stay safe everyone!

Tutorial : macOS Big Sur beta 1 installation and Wi-Fi fix via kernel extension modification

Edit July: now that beta 2 and 3 are out, this tutorial and some links might not work anymore. I'll try to update the article with the final release so your mileage may vary.

Step 0: being aware of the risks

If you are not comfortable with Linux or the Mac terminal, please do not attempt this tutorial. If you attempt this tutorial only to make your Wi-Fi working on your already working macOS Big Sur partition, do not do it also if you are not very comfortable with a Terminal as it may completely break your system. Wait for a better solution or buy a cheap Wi-Fi dongle on Amazon instead.

Step 1: downloading the beta

Since your Mac isn't officially supported, the update will not be showing on your system, even when enrolled in the beta program. You'll need to download the special package directly from Apple CDN, here (9.56GB).

Step 2: downloading the additional library

We need to inject an additional library named Hax.dylib during the installation process. You need to download it here (32KB).

Step 3: moving the library

To make it easier later (when we will use the $PWD variable in the Terminal), use the Finder to move or copy the library to your home folder. In my case this is /SAMSUNG SSD/Users/juliensatti/.

Step 4: booting into recovery mode

Before actually installing macOS Big Sur, we need to disable the system compatibility check layer, disable the system integrity protection (SIP), disable the verification of the libraries and, only then, insert our Hax.dylib in an environment variable.

To achieve all that, we first need to BOOT into recovery mode. Simply restart your Mac and immediately hold the CMD-R keys on reboot until you see the recovery OS.

Step 5: disabling SIP

Run csrutil disable in the recovery Terminal accessible in the menu bar under Utilities. You will also be able to check the success of the command, back in Catalina (so, after a reboot), by running csrutil status (optional).

Step 6: disabling compatibility check

Run the following command in the previoulsy opened Terminal in recovery mode: nvram boot-args='-no_compat_check'. Nothing should show up if successful.

Step 7: disabling libraries validation

First, REBOOT your computer into recovery mode (step 4). Then, open a new Terminal from there and run this long command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.libraryvalidation.plist DisableLibraryValidation -bool true. If you get an error regarding sudo, try the same command without it.

Step 8: inserting the additional library

From the same Terminal, execute launchctl setenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES $PWD/Hax.dylib. This command will add the Hax.dylib library in your home folder as an environement variable.

Step 9: installing macOS, finally

To proceed with the proper installation of the system, REBOOT your computer in macOS Catalina (your original partition). Then, open the InstallAssistant.pkg package that you downloaded on step 1.

At the end of the process, a new app will be installed in your Applications folder (you can find it via Spotlight): Install macOS Beta.

IMPORTANT: If the computer on which you will be installing this version of macOS is not capable of a wired Ethernet connexion and if you do not have another computer on-hand, please also follow step 11 to 13 right now as you may not have a working Wi-Fi right away after the install.

The only thing left to do is to run this new application, select your target partition and wait

Please note that during the launch of the latter app it may seem stuck. It is not, the whole macOS Big Sur OS is being unzipped in the background, please wait. Additionnaly, you can check this by opening the Activity Monitor.

Once the OS is prepared to be installed, click 'Restart' and you should be on for dozens of automatic reboots. Wait for the installation to proceed, give it time.Some time later, you should now have macOS Big Sur beta1 installed on your obsolete Mac. Congrats!

— At this point your Wi-Fi should or should not be working —

My Wi-Fi is working

Great! It's over. Glad I could help! Updates should be arriving in the system preferences, as usual. Don't forget to enroll your Mac to the beta program to receive future betas along the way...

My Wi-Fi is not working

Well then, we have work to do. Be sure to know what you are doing. If you are not but still feeling lucky (and totally aware that you can break your whole system in an instant), then proceed to the steps below:

Step 10: testing the system

In order to make your life easier, try to run the following command from a macOS Big Sur Terminal: sudo mount -uw. If no error is returned as a result, please follow this tutorial from ASentientBot or this one if it still does not work, from libneko. Else, carry on.

Step 11: downloading an older version of the Wi-Fi kernel extension

An older kext (kernel extension) named IO80211Family.kext is necessary in order for the Wi-Fi to work. You can download it here (8.6MB, 20.5MB unzipped).

Step 12: creating the bootable USB

You'll need a bootable version of macOS Big Sur on a USB stick (or an external drive partition, as you wish).

To do this, open a Terminal, make sur that Install macOS Beta is still in your Applications folder and execute the following command by making sure to replace <USB/ Label> with the name of your USB stick or dedicated partition:sudo /Applications/Install macOS Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/<USB/ Label>/

Macos 11 Big Sur On Unsupported Macs Version

Please note that this command will wipe the content on the volume selected.*

Step 13: copying the extension to the USB

Now that the bootable USB is done with the previous command, you can copy on it the IO80211Family.kext previously downloaded (and unzipped, if not already done).

Step 14: remembering Volume Group UUID and Preboot disk

From a Terminal window running on your installed macOS Big Sur system, run sudo kcditto. Take a picture with your phone of this window as it may come in handy later on.

Step 15: disabling authenticated root

1. REBOOT to the bootable USB drive of macOS Big Sur.
2. If you have FileVault enabled, neither the author of the original tutorial or I have tested it, but you should be prompted to enter password for the Big Sur installation.
3. Open a new Terminal window, from Utilities > Terminal.
4. Run csrutil authenticated-root disable to disable the authenticated root from the System Integrity Protection (SIP).
5. REBOOT to the bootable USB drive of macOS Big Sur, once more.

Step 16: mounting the volume

After reboot, open a new Terminal and:

1. Mount your Big Sur system partition, not the data one: diskutil mount /Volumes/<Volume Name. Please don't forget to replace <Volume Name> with the name of your volume. Always prepend spaces in volume name with, for example, in my case: diskutil mount /Volumes/SAMSUNG SSD
2. Remount it as readwrite: mount -uw /Volumes/<Volume Name>
3. Make a snapshot to restore if something wents wrong:/System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs_systemsnapshot -s 'BeforeWifiKexts' -v /Volumes/<Volume Name>

You should see: <Volume Name> on /Volumes/<Volume Name> mounted as a confirmation.

Step 17: replacing the kernel extension (kext)

From the same Terminal:

1. Navigate to the extensions folder: cd /Volumes/<Volume Name>/System/Library/Extension
2. Backup current kext: mv IO80211Family.kext IO80211Family.kext.backup
3. Copy new kext from the USB drive, the latter always being mounted at /Volumes/Image Volume : cp -r /Volumes/Image Volume/IO80211Family.kext ..

Make sure there are no errors at the end of these commands. Nothing should appear, it's normal.

Step 18: installing the kernel extension (kext)

That's where things can start to go wrong, proceed cautiously.

From the same Terminal, run the following command: kmutil install --update-all --volume-root /Volumes/<Volume Name>.

You should see Brcm4360, Brcm4331 and some other kexts in the output. There MUST be no errors when running this command. You can see an example here.

Step 19: creating snapshot and making it bootable

Frpm the same Terminal, once again:

1. We need to create an APFS snapshot for our volume, running the following long command:/System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs_systemsnapshot -s 'WifiKexts' -v /Volumes/<Volume Name>
2. Then, we need to mark it as bootable:/System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs_systemsnapshot -r 'WifiKexts' -v /Volumes/<Volume Name>The only difference between these two commands, is -s after apfssystemsnapshot replaced with -r

You should see Attempting creation... and Attempting tagging... if everything went perfectly.

Step 20: copying updated BootKernelExtensions to the Preboot volume

Well, that's where things went south for me while following a tutorial of my own. I was told to mount the Preboot partition of the disk on which my installed macOS Big Sur is. At Step 1, the Terminal told me this was /dev/disk2s2. However, while executing the right command to mount this partition, well... no partition with this name was available.

My fix was to run in the current Terminal of my USB Big Sur volume the following command in order to list all the disks (and their partitions) connected to Mac : diskutil list. From there, you should look over to a partition named Preboot and make sure it's the right one (if it's not the only one).So anyway, once that was under control:

1. Mount the Preboot disk with diskutil mount /dev/<yourprebootdisk> (once again, look at the picture you took on step 13, or do what I did above).
2. Create a backup of Preboot data by:
   2.1. Navigating to the volume: cd /Volumes/Preboot;
   2.2. Listing the UUID(s): ls;
   2.3. Checking with your picture that this is the correct UUID and execute the following command by replacing <UUID> with your UUID: cp -r <UUID> <UUID>.beforewifikexts.
3. Navigate to the correct folder in Preboot with the UUID we just confirmed: cd /Volumes/Preboot/<UUID>/boot/System/Library/KernelCollections
4. Copy BootKernelExtensions from your volume to Preboot:cp /Volumes/<Volume Name>/System/Library/KernelCollections/BootKernelExtensions.kc .
cp /Volumes/<Volume Name>/System/Library/KernelCollections/BootKernelExtensions.kc.elides .

You should not see anything in return if the commands were successful.

We can also note that remembering the UUID wasn't really needed because in my case there were only one install base, but this way you can always verify...

Step 21: final

REBOOT to your installed macOS Big Sur system (the normal one). If you’re stuck on boot after approximately 10 minutes, well, you are in a state I wouldn't want to be in. THe only thing left to do is to reset your whole system via Recovery Mode... else:

1. Log in (Wi-Fi still should not work, that's normal).
2. Open a Terminal and run: sudo kcditto
3. Reboot.

Congrats! Wi-Fi should now work correctly.

In case something went wrong

To revert our changes, in the case they haven't entirely broken the system, REBOOT into your mac OS Big Sur USB and open a Terminal:

1. Make a backup snapshot bootable (notice -r instead of -s):/System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs_systemsnapshot -r 'BeforeWifiKexts' -v /Volumes/<Volume Name>
2. Mount Preboot as listed in step 19: cd /Volumes/Preboot
3. mv .broken where is your Volume Group UUID4. cp -r .beforewifikexts where is your Volume Group UUID
4. REBOOT to your macOS Big Sur original system and check. After that, you can try again, but don’t create BeforeWifiKexts snapshot and don’t copy preboot again! It’s meant to be done once.
   · · ·

That's the end of this large tutorial. Thanks again to all the contributors on MacRumors forums for their help... and long live to our Macs! I'll try to update this tutorial to see if the other betas break what we fixed with the Wi-Fi or not. Until then, thank you for passing by! 🤟🏼

· · ·

If you tried for yourself or liked this post, don't hesitate to share this article with people it might interest and please share your taughts below in the comments. 😄