21 Jul 2021

Apple released macOS 11 version 11.0.1, "Big Sur," on 12 Nov 2020. It is a free update to 10.15 Catalina. This note describes how to update a computer from an older version of macOS to Big Sur. (The OS is called "macOS 11" instead of "macOS X". Whoopee.)

The latest version of macOS is version 11.0.1, "Big Sur", released on 12 Nov 2020.

Apple released macOS 11.1 on 14 Dec 2020 with support for AirPods Max, plus new features for Apple TV, Apple News, App Store, iPhone Apps on M1 Macs, Photos and Safari, and bug fixes.
Apple released macOS 11.2 on 01 Feb 2021 improving Bluetooth and fixing serious security problems.
Apple released macOS 11.2.1 on 09 Feb 2021 fixing charging problems on 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros, and serious security problems with sudo and graphics.
Apple released macOS 11.2.2 on 25 Feb 2021 fixing problems M1 Macs had with certain USB-C hubs and docks.
Apple released macOS 11.2.3 on 09 Mar 2021 fixing a security problem with Web content.
Apple released MacOS 11.3 on 26 Apr 2021 fixing more security problems and adding support for new devices.
Apple released MacOS 11.3.1 on 03 May 2021 fixing more security problems.
Apple released MacOS 11.4 on 24 may 2021 fixing more serious security problems and adding support for new devices.

There is a bug in the Big Sur installer that will brick your Mac if you try to install witnout enough free disk space, according to 9to5mac.com as of 09 Feb 2021. They say this bug is present in macOS 11.2 and in the 11.3 beta.

(I have not installed Big Sur on any computers.)

Ars Technica published macOS 11.0 Big Sur: The Ars Technica review on 11/12/2020.

Howard Oakley wrote an article on APFS changes in Big Sur.

Graham Needham has a useful article, macOS 11 Big Sur Frequently Asked Questions FAQ.

Michael Tsai published a review of Big Sur in May 2021. It sounds horrible. Mail bugs, Save dialog failures. External drive problems.

Big Sur ships with new Macs.

Features of Big Sur

• Support for new Apple machines using Apple ARM chips announced in late 2020.
• New "bubbly" UI design, different menubar, toolbars, Dock, icons, sounds, and sidebars. New wallpapers, sounds, etc.
• New Control Center, like on iPhone.
• Revised Notifications, Messages, Search, Maps, App Store, Photos, AirPod support, Homekit, Music, etc.
• New version of Safari: extensions, tabs, start page, translation, privacy, speed, power.
• Runs on 2015+ MacBook, 2013+ Air, 2013++ MacBook Pro, 2014+ Mini, 2014+ iMac, 2017+ iMac Pro, 2013+ MacPro. Some Catalina-compatible Macs will not run Big Sur.
• AFP file sharing with old Macs will not work. File sharing with pre-Mavericks Macs might fail.
• All the Catalina restrictions: 32-bit applications won't run, file system converted to APFS, etc.

Some applications developed for iOS can also run on Big Sur; this may make more apps available for the Mac. This feature is called "Catalyst."

Big Sur cryptographically signs every file on the read-only file system partition (that was introduced in Catalina). The signatures are checked when files are loaded, and the bootloader checks that all the hashes are correct at boot time. This should make it more difficult for malware to patch the OS.

Should I Install Big Sur?

• Be cautious.

Show Stoppers

Serious installation failure leading to bricked computer. See above. Check MacInTouch for the latest status.

Box seems to have problems on Big Sur.

Super Duper is unable to make a bootable backup for Big Sur on M1 Macs.

Installation Problems

Needs more disk space than Catalina.. about 3GB.

tbd

What you Should Do Now to Get Ready for Big Sur

• Make sure your machine is not too old.
• Use  ► App Store... => Updates and  ► System Preferences...=>Software Update to keep all Apple software up to date, including the OS.
• Apply all free updates to other software you use.
• Set up an external hard drive and use Time Machine.
• Add more RAM if you can.
• If you are running a version of Mac OS X earlier than Snow Leopard, you will have to install Snow Leopard first. You can buy an installer disc for Snow Leopard from Apple's web site for $20.

Who Can Update

Not everyone can use the new OS version.

• Big Sur does not support Macs before 2013. Check the official list. Computers over 7 years old are not supported.
• If you depend on PowerPC programs, the latest version of OS X that you can run is Snow Leopard, since Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, and Big Sur do not support Rosetta, the PowerPC emulator. See the Frequently Asked Questions section about Big Sur. In particular, pre-Lion Quicken, Microsoft Office 2004, and some features of Adobe CS3 will not run on Big Sur. (See Adobe article.) Stick with OS X 10.6.8a until you upgrade these applications. (You could install VirtualBox (free) on your Mac, and install 10.6 into a virtual machine, and update it to 10.6.8a, and run your PowerPC programs under the emulated OS. I tried this on Yosemite, and it worked.)
• If you depend on the Classic environment to run Mac OS 9 programs from the 1990s, stick with OS X 10.4.
• If you have a Mac with a PowerPC processor, Big Sur won't work on it. Stick with OS X 10.5.8.
• You can't install Big Sur over an ancient version of OS X: Apple's license terms specify that Big Sur is only for Macs that have Lion, Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina installed, and the installer enforces this restriction.
• Old printers and scanners may not work if the manufacturer has not updated the driver software. Those with PowerPC or 32-bit drivers will not work.

Plan your install

When you decide to install Big Sur, do it carefully. You may find that there are issues that affect you: do your homework. Check MacInTouch to see if there are problems with macOS 11.0 that affect you.

Make sure you back up your entire disk before starting to install Big Sur. Preferably to more than one place.

Make a list of the hardware you depend on, and search the web to check that each device will work. Older printers and scanners can have issues.

Leave yourself enough time. Upgrading will tie up your computer for a big part of a day. Installing takes an hour or two, but then your computer will be very slow until it re-does the Spotlight index and does a big backup up to Time Machine.

Issues with Apple Silicon ARM processors

Here is an article about the new Apple Silicon machines with the M1 chip from Ars Technica.

• As of November 2020, many third party applications have not been compiled as "universal" binaries. These apps will run under Rosetta 2 Emulation and may be slower than ARM native, and could encounter errors. (No errors are reported yet.)
• Not clear if VMWare Fusion, Parallels, Docker, and VirtualBox will work until the new virtualization layer is available.
• A version of the Golang compiler that outputs code for ARM is planned for February. GCC, Homebrew, Electron, Julia all currently lack ARM support. (Supposedly you can make Homebrew work by forcing Terminal to run under Rosetta. Look it up.)
• Info from The Register. Check for the latest info.

Particular issues before upgrading

Because Big Sur does some important restructuring of the file system, to provide the immutable system partition, if you find problems with Big Sur, you can't go back to a previous OS without wiping your hard drive and reloading the whole thing. Do an extra full clone backup of your disk before upgrading, and save that backup until you're sure you will keep Big Sur.

Big Sur requires that native ARM code must be signed to execute. This does not require interaction with Apple or a developer license -- it just checks that compiled ARM object files have not been patched.

Here is a partial list of minimum program versions needed for Big Sur. For other programs, check product websites.

Program	Minimum Version	Notes
Aquamacs	3.5	graphics issues
Audacity	2.3.2	64-bit at last
Adobe Photoshop	CC	Photoshop CC is $120/yr. See below. (ARM supported.)
Adobe Illustrator	CC	Illustrator CC is $240/yr. See below. (ARM supported.)
Adobe Acrobat	CC	Acrobat CC is $180/yr. See below. (ARM not supported yet.)
Apple XCode	12.2	free with registration; also install Command Line Developer Tools
DropBox	63.4.100	free
Little Snitch	5	A new version of Little Snitch is required for Big Sur. Furthermore, some Apple traffic such as Maps and ads don't show in Little Snitch. This sucks.
MacPorts	2.7.1 for Big Sur	free
Microsoft Office	2019	$123
Onyx	3.7.6	free
Super Duper	3.5 for Big Sur is in beta	Cannot make a bootable backup with Super Duper.
Brother P-Touch Editor	5.1	not supported

• Programs that will not be upgraded: Some device drivers: check with your device manufacturers. The free software CUPS drivers may work for some printers.
• Peripherals: Make sure your printers and scanners will be supported. Some manufacturers don't release updated drivers for their printers for months after a new OS X release.

Adobe: Renting Instead of Buying

Adobe no longer sells regular application versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. Instead they rent you a Creative Cloud subscription. Stop paying, the apps stop working. They tell you that one advantage is that you'll get bug fixes and new features whenever they decide to release them. (There are a lot of tricky deals, initial teasers, different bundles. You could pay $20/app/mo or $600/yr for all CC apps, plus $180/yr for Acrobat. Adobe also sells Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020 as non-cloud applications for $100 each one-time, or both for $150.)

There are alternatives to Adobe products. I am using Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. I need a replacement for Adobe Acrobat: PDFPen ($80) is looking attractive. There is a program called PDF Expert but its web site does not say how much it costs. I am not going to install it just in order to find out.

Microsoft: Renting Instead of Buying

Microsoft wants to rent you "Office 365" for $70/yr, $100/yr for up to 6 people. You can still buy a "forever" Home and Student version of Office 2019 for about $130.

Quicken and Banktivity: Renting Instead of Buying

Quicken has moved to a rental model also. There are various versions, Starter, Deluxe, Premier. Banktivity 7 works for me and is not rental software. Update: Banktivity is going to a subscription model as of 2021. Shucks.

Sony Alpha Support

I bought a Sony Alpha 6300 camera a few years ago. One feature I liked was the ability to upload photos from the camera to my Mac using WiFi and Sony's PlayMemories software.

Sony's PlayMemories software for the Mac was 32-bit. It is not supported on Big Sur. Instead, you have to install the Sony Imaging Edge app on a smartphone, and then transfer the pictures to your Mac. This method did not work at all until March 15, 2020, when an update for the Sony Imaging Edge smartphone app was released. I was able to transfer a photo to Mojave, but it takes multiple steps and the Help and website are extremely hard to understand.

Sony made Imaging Edge software available for the Mac about July 2020. In August 2020, I installed Imaging Edge for the Mac on Mojave, but it does not support the wireless connection mode for my camera, which worked with PlayMemories. To upload pictures to my Mac, I have to first send them by WiFi to my iPhone and then send them to the Mac; or I can connect the camera to my Mac using an USB-2 cable, or pull out the SD card and insert it into a Mac SD card reader. Uploading pictures is much more finicky and time consuming that it used to be.

I am very disappointed with Sony's Mac support. Sony has broken my camera. Makes me think of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine: "We're the Phone Company and We Don't Have To."

Installing Big Sur

(I have not installed Big Sur yet, so everything below this point will need updating when I do.)

1. Clean up and update software before installing.
   • (If your Mac is running a very old version of OS X, you must install Snow Leopard 10.6.8 first, in order to get a version of Apple App Store that can download Big Sur. Here is Apple's how to upgrade page.)
   • You can download the Big Sur Installer from  ► System Preferences...=>Software Update. It is free. This downloads a large file, the Big Sur Installer, to your disk. You can create a bootable installer volume on a USB key using these instructions. (But see the TidBits article "Previously Downloaded OS X Installers No Longer Work".) Apple's license terms say you can update all your computers with one purchase.
   • Get the applications on your computer ready for 11.0: apply the latest fixes.
   • Delete junk files. Carefully.
   • Delete Safari, iTunes, and Firefox caches, so your backup will be faster.
   • If you have customized your desktop background or screensaver, write down your settings. Some Apple-provided pictures may not be available in the next version.. make a safe copy of anything you will want after upgrading.
   • Empty the Trash.
   • Clean up damaged and duplicate fonts.
   • Have your software license keys handy in case you have to re-authorize products.

   For Programmers

   • If you use MySQL, back up your databases with mysqldump databasename > db.sql. Then stop MySQL.
   • If you use Apache, save a copy of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf.
   • If you installed modules via CPAN, Macports, or Fink, make a list of them. In a Terminal window, type
     perldoc perllocal | grep :: > cpan_modules.txt
     port -qv installed > macports_packages.txt
   • The best way to handle Macports is to uninstall all the old ports and reinstall after updating the OS. After you list your installed ports, type
     sudo port -fp uninstall installed
     in a Terminal window.
2. Backup and prepare.
   • BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE to an external disk. I used SuperDuper to clone my whole drive. Some cautious people make two backups.
   • If you are using an anti-virus product like Microsoft Defender ATP, disable it, or installation will fail. Some anti-malware programs see the utility that converts HFS to APFS as malware, and prevent it from running. Since most anti-virus software is tightly integrated with the operating system, you may have to install a Big Sur-specific version of your software after installing Big Sur anyway. Check with the maker of your software.
   • If you installed a third-party Solid State Disk (SSD), check the manufacturer's website to see if you need to update its firmware to work with Big Sur.
   • If you connect your Mac to the network using WiFi, select  ► System Preferences...=>Network=>Advanced and delete any WiFi networks you don't want to use. (If you don't, your computer may connect to a very slow network during installation, which will slow down your install.)
3. Install
   • If you use a wireless mouse or keyboard, put in fresh batteries.
   • Set screen saver to NEVER, and turn off Time Machine.
   • Dismount and unplug or power off external drives.
   • Restart your computer. (I've had problems where my computer hangs on shutdown. Restarting seems to fix it for a while. Don't want this trouble when installing a new OS.)
   • Run the Big Sur (macOS 11.0) installer. If you downloaded it, use that copy. Or you can just select  ► System Preferences...=>Software Update and install by clicking on the link.
     • If FileVault is enabled on your computer, the installer will ask for a password to unlock the disk.
     • The installer will run for about 15 minutes, then reboot, then run for about an hour, then reboot again. Might ask for your password again.
     • The "time remaining" will show wildly varying estimates as the installer proceeds.
     • Don't panic if you see a gray screen with "30 minutes remaining" for an hour. Just let it run.
     • Eventually you will be presented with a login screen; enter your password.
     • You will see a window about privacy.
     • Next you will be asked if you want to send analytic information to Apple.
     • Then you will be asked if you want light mode or dark mode appearance. (You can change this later.)
     • Then the system will display your desktop. All your files and applications should be there.
   • If Big Sur asks you if you want to "enable Desktop and Documents folder syncing to iCloud," the safest thing to do is to say NO. If you say YES, these folders will be backed up in iCloud and available on all devices, which you may not want, and saying YES may also enable "Optimize Storage" without asking, which will delete files from your computer's drive if it gets too full. Adam Engst's TidBITS article on Optimized Storage is very helpful.
   • Select  ► System Preferences...=>Software Update and  ► App Store... to make sure you are up-to-date with the latest versions of Apple software. Then run it again to make sure all software is updated. (might take another hour) This step may find additional OS and application updates.
   • Do a "smoke test" to verify that your computer is working OK. Make sure the applications you depend on are still working. Try out the applications from Apple that were updated with the OS. If you have trouble, restore your backup and go back to the old OS version.
4. Recover
   • Wait for Spotlight to finish indexing (may take several hours). Performance will suck till it finishes.
   • Turn on Time Machine and start your backup.
   • You don't have to repair disk permissions with Disk Utility any more. In fact, you can't; the option is gone.
   • Restart the computer. Often this speeds things up.

Post Install Tasks

Once you are satisfied that your computer works acceptably, and you are going to stay on Big Sur, you can make some adjustments.

• If your computer seems slow or buggy, try zapping the PRAM.
• If you have purchased applications that are OS version specific, like Onyx, buy updates and install them.
• Clean your font caches by issuing the Terminal command sudo atsutil databases -remove and restarting.
• If FileVault was on, it will be on after upgrading. Check to make sure. In Fact, check all the System Preferences. Once in a while something is changed by an update.
• In  ► System Preferences...=>Software Update=>Advanced do not check "Install app updates from the App Store." It is probably best not to install any updates automatically.

Customization

You will probably want to set up per-user customizations, such as your desktop background and screensaver. After each new OS generation this is something of an adventure; functions get renamed and moved around.

• I really hate the CAPS LOCK key, so I disable it. In Big Sur, this is done by opening  ► System Preferences...=>Keyboard=>Keyboard=>Modifier Keys and changing the action for CAPS LOCK to "No Action." (I had set this on Sierra and it was carried over by the upgrade process.)
• In  ► System Preferences...=>Keyboard=>Trackpad, I uncheck "Scroll Direction: natural" .. it seems UNnatural to me after 34 years. (I had set this on Sierra and it was carried over by the upgrade process.)
• I disable or silence most Notifications.

Security issues

Catalina reorganizes your startup disk so that MacOS is stored on a read-only file system partition. This means that transitioning to Big Sur has to move things around, and that going back to Mojave or earlier will be difficult.

There are additional security checks done by Gatekeeper. macOS will insist that programs are "notarized" in order to run them.

Some kinds of security certificates are no longer accepted. These are the ones using SHA-1, which is deprecated.

Devices

• Check that your printers work. If your printer will not work, you may be able to get it working by selecting  ► System Preferences...=>Print&Scan, deleting the printer and adding the printer again: for some printers, this will trigger running  ► App Store... => Updates to get new printer software. For other printers, you will have to download the correct printer driver from the manufacturer's web site.
• If you have a scanner, plug it in and power it on. Mine worked fine. If the scanner appears in  ► System Preferences...=>Print&Scan, remove it, and add it again. For some scanners, this will invoke  ► App Store... => Updates to add a driver that will let you operate the scanner with Image Capture. For other scanners, you will have to download the correct scanner driver from the manufacturer's web site. If manufacturer-supplied software is not available, and Image Capture does not provide enough features, you may be able to get it working by purchasing and installing VueScan.

Big Sur Observations

to be updated

Microsoft Office

to be updated

Adobe

I no longer use Adobe products.

New Features and Changes

Security

to be updated

Privacy

to be updated

Finder

New Features:

Login Screen

to be updated

Screen Saver

Because the arrow keys no longer allow you to control the screen saver (as of Mojave),

• Download and install Art Saver by Gabriel Zachmann from http://www.cs.uni-bremen.de/~zach/software/ArtSaver/index.html -- make sure to pick the Big Sur version.
• Create a directory in your home directory called e.g. /screensaver
• If you have been using a folder in Photos for images, export them to your picture folder.
• In  ► System Preferences => Screen Saver, choose Art Saver in the left sidebar. Then click Screensaver Options.
• Configure Art Saver to point at your /screensaver directory, and Open the directory and select all its contents.
• Configure other Art Saver options as you desire.

Bugs and Surprises in Big Sur

to be updated

Mail

Mail can now block all mail from specific senders, automatically deleting any incoming messages from them.

iTunes Replacement

to be updated

Restart

to be updated

Terminal

to be updated. Mention zsh

Notifications and Photos

to be updated

Preferences

to be updated

About This Mac

to be updated

Fonts

to be updated

GraphViz

to be updated

Aquamacs

to be updated

Removed Features

to be updated

Planning for the next version

The next macOS version, Monterey, will released in Fall 2021. A beta is available already.

Keep a list of the software and devices you use and depend on, so you can check that they are supported.