macOS 11 - Big Sur

fjon · 22-06-2020 8:49pm #1

So they've finally finished with Mac v10/X. It's been around since I started using Macs (I started on Panther) and has had a good run. Sadly looks like the last OS update my 2013 MBP will be eligible for.

Anyone trying the dev beta? Interested to hear the reports.
I can't risk anything happening to my laptop so will wait until a few beta versions have been released.

DubDJ · 22-06-2020 8:59pm

The next few years will be interesting for the Mac. There was such a struggle when Apple dropped 32-bit apps it will be interesting to see how difficult the transition to ARM will be. The redesign will take some time to get used to, I like the new design of a lot of the apps. They feel a lot more modern and lightweight/consistent. But the iOS style elements seem a little alien on macOS. The sliders and buttons look more suited to touch rather than mouse.

PropJoe10 · 22-06-2020 9:02pm

My MBP 2012 is dropped in this update anyway, but I'll keep an eye out for any efforts to get this running on unsupported Macs. The new user interface looks nice. Bit like KDE with transparency.

Doodah7 · 22-06-2020 10:19pm

End of the road for my mid-2012 MBP also. A good run lasting 8 years. With two internal SSD’s and 16GB of RAM it still flies!

PropJoe10 · 22-06-2020 10:53pm

Doodah7 wrote: »

End of the road for my mid-2012 MBP also. A good run lasting 8 years. With two internal SSD’s and 16GB of RAM it still flies!

Well, we'll have another 2 years of security updates in Catalina anyway. Plus, there's always the chance that Big Sur will work on these machines with a little persuasion! I see work is already underway over on MacRumors to patch this OS to run on older machines.

calum · 23-06-2020 12:29am

fjon wrote: »

So they've finally finished with Mac v10/X. It's been around since I started using Macs (I started on Panther) and has had a good run.

Rumour has it the major version bump could be due to some legal disentanglement with Intel as much as anything, but who knows. There doesn't seem to be any other compelling reason to do it at this stage, especially as they didn't even bump it to 14 to sync up with iOS/iPadOS. (Yes, it's kind of the start of a new era, but so was PPC->x86 and they didn't bother doing it then.)

Shn99 · 23-06-2020 1:51pm

Installed dev beta on my 2019 MBA, avoid avoid avoid!!!

Royale with Cheese · 23-06-2020 5:11pm

I switched from Windows to Mac nearly four years ago. Well actually I bought the MacBook originally for music production/performance but after a few months I loved it and realised I hadn't turned my Windows desktop on at all so just gave it to my parents. I think the switch to arm will see me going back to Windows. I'm a .net developer so need to able to use Windows and bootcamp gave me the best of both world's, and I don't fancy trying to do anything professional on an arm version of Windows 10. This has been rumoured for a long time but I'd heard they would be creating a new arm based MacBook and leaving the pros with Intel chips, apparently not.

Sad Professor · 27-06-2020 8:48am

I haven't used Bootcamp in years. It was useful back when the switch to Intel first happened, but Macs are pretty well supported now.

My early 2016 MacBook should be safe for a while but I badly need a new desktop and the transition to ARM is only going to make me dither even further.

iniall · 02-07-2020 2:46pm

Yeah had intended to replace my ageing MacBook Air this year, but I can't see a new Intel Mac being supported for more than three or four years, should I should probably wait for the ARM Macs before buying. On the other hand, will the first generation of ARM Macs be as good as they could be...? It's a confusing time for ditherers...!

whippet · 02-07-2020 3:21pm

almost 20 years of Mac OSX - I was working with an Apple reseller when it was launched. Really weird at the time. I remember installing it on an G4 Cube and the OS couldn't recognise the optical drive.

The amount of resistance to traditional mac users to the new OS was hard to understand.

PropJoe10 · 02-07-2020 5:53pm

iniall wrote: »

Yeah had intended to replace my ageing MacBook Air this year, but I can't see a new Intel Mac being supported for more than three or four years, should I should probably wait for the ARM Macs before buying. On the other hand, will the first generation of ARM Macs be as good as they could be...? It's a confusing time for ditherers...!

It's very hard to know what to do. There's a YouTuber called Luke Miani that has a half-decent channel, all based on Mac-related news, that did an episode there with a few thoughts for people in your situation. Worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbGLXpMb8qM

IamMetaldave · 31-07-2020 6:56pm

Well, the last day of July and still no sign of the public beta. Still time left in the day on Cupertino time I guess :pac:

IamMetaldave · 06-08-2020 6:57pm

Public Beta just went out.

fjon · 11-08-2020 12:17pm

Downloaded it, and very few issues noticed. A few odd app crashes, but nothing too serious. Everything I have installed works on it, except for two VPNs I have - neither work.

IamMetaldave · 13-08-2020 9:17am

fjon wrote: »

Downloaded it, and very few issues noticed. A few odd app crashes, but nothing too serious. Everything I have installed works on it, except for two VPNs I have - neither work.

Firefox was crashing, but a new install solved it. My PIA VPN is working without issue, actually, an update was available straight after the install, probably coincidental.

Simon201 · 20-09-2020 7:38pm

Just loaded the beta onto a clone of my main HD to be able to test some stuff. Really like the look of the icons and general style change. This is much more of a visual change than we've seen for a good few years. Even some skeuomorphism back which I like.

IamMetaldave · 21-09-2020 9:22am

Simon201 wrote: »

Just loaded the beta onto a clone of my main HD to be able to test some stuff. Really like the look of the icons and general style change. This is much more of a visual change than we've seen for a good few years. Even some skeuomorphism back which I like.

It seems to be a split on how it looks, I too am a fan.

And there's my word for the day that I learned!

DubDJ · 21-09-2020 5:52pm

I think that they're referring to the new UI elements as neumorphism, like a blend between the two. I haven't tried macOS 11 yet but I am looking forward to it. Looks like there will be a lot of users who will take time to get used to the new look overall.

The Black Oil · 29-10-2020 8:15pm

Hopefully we won't be waiting much longer.

DubDJ · 30-10-2020 9:50am

The new services are launching today, if Apple don’t intend of waiting for the rumoured event in Nov then maybe macOS 11 could also be released today. With 11.0.01 already out it seems imminent.

FourFourRED · 10-11-2020 7:43pm

Out this Thursday

The Black Oil · 12-11-2020 3:02pm

Presumably 6pm Irish time?

FourFourRED · 12-11-2020 5:37pm

The Black Oil wrote: »

Presumably 6pm Irish time?

Typically follows that release time but iOS 14 arrived around 3 or 4 hours later than the norm this year so it could be anytime

The Black Oil · 12-11-2020 7:32pm

Out now. It's saying 12.18GB for me.

DubDJ · 12-11-2020 8:06pm

Same 12.18GB for me. About 17 hours remaining for the download

Must be getting hit hard, normally downloads fly for me. This is the worst it's been in years.

The Black Oil · 12-11-2020 8:20pm

Said 5 hours, then 1 day, now 3 days.

Sad Professor · 12-11-2020 8:22pm

3 days as well. Screw this!

Gregor Samsa · 12-11-2020 8:44pm

On a 500mb fibre connection here, connected to the router via Ethernet. 3 hours then 5, then 9 then 15, suddenly down to 6. Now down to 2. All within the space of 2 minutes. It’s still saying 2 hours even though the MB count hasn’t updated in 5 minutes. There’s no point in me keeping an eye on it, it’s obviously going to fluctuate wildly.

DubDJ · 12-11-2020 9:02pm

I got about 6GB into it and the download failed with an error message. Restarted all over again :mad: Back up to 2.5GB now. Not going to be using Big Sur today anyway.

FourFourRED · 12-11-2020 9:10pm

I’ve the Big Sure RC 2 downloaded already and made a bootable installer out of it. Had access to the dev profile from when I was an employee in the summer. So I will see if that’s the same build (almost definitely) and install from that.

Gregor Samsa · 12-11-2020 9:13pm

Half an hour since I started, I’m half way through (6.11 GB) and it says 4 hours remaining.

fjon · 12-11-2020 9:30pm

I have decided when I eventually upgrade I will do a clean install. My Mac is 7 years old and has loads of crap on it I'm sure.
Anyone done this? Bit daunted about putting all the files back on it. Do you just put them all on to an external drive and move them over bit by bit? Obviously doing a Time Machine restore defeats the purpose.

The Black Oil · 12-11-2020 9:47pm

Got 2 and a bit in, went to watch TV and then got an error. 1.78GB for a little bit, now it's saying 54 minutes.

Gregor Samsa · 12-11-2020 9:53pm

“Installation failed”.

Started the process again, and it immediately jumped up to 1.72GB process, but there’s no time estimate. Realistically, I don’t see this happening until the weekend.

Remember when OS updates used to come on MacFormat magazine cover disks? Those were the days.

I can’t even remember how I upgraded from System 6 to System 7.

The Black Oil · 12-11-2020 9:57pm

Spoke too soon, failed again...
It just doesn't want to know.

Gregor Samsa · 12-11-2020 10:07pm

Yeah, getting constant failures now. I’ll try again in the morning when the Americans are asleep.

DubDJ · 12-11-2020 10:40pm

fjon wrote: »

I have decided when I eventually upgrade I will do a clean install. My Mac is 7 years old and has loads of crap on it I'm sure.
Anyone done this? Bit daunted about putting all the files back on it. Do you just put them all on to an external drive and move them over bit by bit? Obviously doing a Time Machine restore defeats the purpose.

I do this all the time, really easy to get started from scratch. I usually do a time machine backup and then copy all the files over to a separate hard drive as a double backup just in case.

Simple restart and hold Cmd+R to boot to the recovery partition and then you can reinstall. One thing to note, I think you need to actually update to Big Sur first before doing this, as I think the recovery partition method only lets you reinstall the most recent version on your Mac. So you can install the Mac’s original OS, or the most recent Mac version (that you had installed). Once you’re done manually copy all the files back over.

As 11 is such a big jump I’ve decided to do a clean install myself. Going to update first, then reformat and reinstall macOS 11. That is if the download ever works.

Another option is to create a bootable usb with macOS 11 on it, I prefer the recovery partition method though.

fjon · 12-11-2020 10:45pm

DubDJ wrote: »

I do this all the time, really easy to get started from scratch. I usually do a time machine backup and then copy all the files over to a separate hard drive as a double backup just in case.

Simple restart and hold Cmd+R to boot to the recovery partition and then you can reinstall. One thing to note, I think you need to actually update to Big Sur first before doing this, as I think the recovery partition method only lets you reinstall the most recent version on your Mac. So you can install the Mac’s original OS, or the most recent Mac version (that you had installed). Once you’re done manually copy all the files back over.

As 11 is such a big jump I’ve decided to do a clean install myself. Going to update first, then reformat and reinstall macOS 11. That is if the download ever works.

Another option is to create a bootable usb with macOS 11 on it, I prefer the recovery partition method though.

Cool, yes I was going to create a bootable USB drive with Big Sur on it like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxLeNx9HLM

It's more the copying back of the files that I'm worried about, especially for stuff like Logic where stuff is spread across different places.
Anyway, will give it a few days so I can actually download the thing without these issues you guys are having.

FourFourRED · 12-11-2020 10:56pm

DubDJ wrote: »

I do this all the time, really easy to get started from scratch. I usually do a time machine backup and then copy all the files over to a separate hard drive as a double backup just in case.

Simple restart and hold Cmd+R to boot to the recovery partition and then you can reinstall. One thing to note, I think you need to actually update to Big Sur first before doing this, as I think the recovery partition method only lets you reinstall the most recent version on your Mac. So you can install the Mac’s original OS, or the most recent Mac version (that you had installed). Once you’re done manually copy all the files back over.

As 11 is such a big jump I’ve decided to do a clean install myself. Going to update first, then reformat and reinstall macOS 11. That is if the download ever works.

Another option is to create a bootable usb with macOS 11 on it, I prefer the recovery partition method though.

If you start up holding CMD + Option + R (internet recovery) it will give you the option to install the newest version available, which in this case is Big Sur. You can then erase the drive in this recovery partition and install a clean install rather than installing it twice.

DubDJ · 12-11-2020 11:46pm

FourFourFM wrote: »

If you start up holding CMD + Option + R (internet recovery) it will give you the option to install the newest version available, which in this case is Big Sur. You can then erase the drive in this recovery partition and install a clean install rather than installing it twice.

I don’t think it works that way though, the CMD+Option+R command installs the latest version of the OS that I had installed. I’ve tried it a couple of times and it never seemed to download the newest release.

Still haven’t managed the update, right now it won’t even let me start the install anymore.

FourFourRED · 12-11-2020 11:51pm

DubDJ wrote: »

I don’t think it works that way though, the CMD+Option+R command installs the latest version of the OS that I had installed. I’ve tried it a couple of times and it never seemed to download the newest release.

Still haven’t managed the update, right now it won’t even let me start the install anymore.

That’s the way it should work in general:

“ Option-⌘-R
Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.”

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904

Maybe not tonight though with the mess the servers have been in.

DubDJ · 13-11-2020 12:19am

FourFourFM wrote: »

That’s the way it should work in general:

“ Option-⌘-R
Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.”

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904

Maybe not tonight though with the mess the servers have been in.

It was previous updates that I’d tried it with that didn’t work. It just reinstalled the latest release minor point release of Mac, but not 10.15 for example.

I see on Twitter there are widespread server issues and nobody can start the download. 9to5 reported the issues as resolved but still broken for me and a lot of the replies too.

OU812 · 13-11-2020 12:22am

Thought my MacBook was just within range, but it's the last version that's not supported. iMac is older still so it looks like I'm stuck on Catalina

FourFourRED · 13-11-2020 12:51am

DubDJ wrote: »

It was previous updates that I’d tried it with that didn’t work. It just reinstalled the latest release minor point release of Mac, but not 10.15 for example.

Was that even with the internet recovery version? I know the local version (CMD+R) will only offer the OS that you’re on currently.

I will test it on my own in a few days but it has worked in the past for people I’ve asked to do it.

DubDJ · 13-11-2020 1:24am

FourFourFM wrote: »

Was that even with the internet recovery version? I know the local version (CMD+R) will only offer the OS that you’re on currently.

I will test it on my own in a few days but it has worked in the past for people I’ve asked to do it.

I gave up in the end so I will test out the internet recovery option tomorrow and see can I reinstall with Big Sur.

Gregor Samsa · 13-11-2020 1:35am

Retried there a couple of minutes ago.

It's 8.8gb down with 4 minutes to go.

Edit: it finished downloading in the time it took to take the screenshot and post this.

DubDJ · 13-11-2020 1:46am

FourFourFM wrote: »

Was that even with the internet recovery version? I know the local version (CMD+R) will only offer the OS that you’re on currently.

I will test it on my own in a few days but it has worked in the past for people I’ve asked to do it.

Reading through the support docs it seems that if you format the SSD first then it might only offer the version that came with the Mac, which is what I usually do. So that explains it.

The Black Oil · 13-11-2020 9:53am

10GB in, 16 minutes to go.

Type 17 · 13-11-2020 10:12am

Downloaded and installed this morning on a Mid-2015 MBP with 16GB RAM - working faster than Catalina, all 3rd party apps fine so far - MS Office 2019, Roomsketcher, Menumeters, 1Password.

OU812 · 13-11-2020 11:51am

is there any way to get this installed on a system that's not supported natively.

macOS 11 - Big Sur

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