macOS 11 Big Sur

MacOS big-sur

Apple released a macOS upgrade called Big Sur (11) on Thursday, November 12,2020.

CAUTION: As customary with a major upgrade, customers are advised to NOT UPGRADE if they depend any of the following software listed below. Work arounds do exist, but may create inefficient workflows. EUT is working on updating local apps for macOS 11 compatibility. There is a slew of changes that comes along with a macOS upgrade; below is a list of those changes. It is important to note that EUT has been restricting macOS Big Sur and Big Sur Beta for managed computers since July 2020. A policy has been applied to all managed computers to ignore the update and hide it for users until EUT has released it through the Application Catalog.

Details

User focused information:
- Most of the changes in Big Sur are to support the Apple ARM chips that are in the new Macs and it visually looks more like iOS, especially Control Center and Notifications.
- iPhone and iPad apps will now be capable of running natively on macOS Big Sur.
- Safari now runs faster, messages and Maps received some improvements.
- There were also some enhancements made for blind and low vision users. See https://www.applevis.com/blog/new-features-changes-improvements-and-bugs-macos-11-big-sur-blind-and-low-vision-user
Device compatibility: Apple has released the following list of compatible devices:
- MacBook Pro (Late 2013 and newer)
- MacBook Air (2013 and newer)
- MacBook (2015 and newer)
- iMac (2014 and newer)
- iMac Pro (2017 and newer)
- Mac Pro (2013 and newer)
- Mac Mini (2014 and newer)

Users with Intel-based Macs can upgrade to Big Sur and based on our immediate tests, little to no issue exists.

Known application incompatibilities found with macOS Big Sur:
- If you are working older printer, then you may want to check that you have a printer compatible with Big Sur. Any printer with Air print will work, see list at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201311, some others may be able to work with an updated driver, if the printer is still supported by the vendor, but vendors decided to drop support for some of their older printers and do not plan to issue updated drivers for Big Sur, so check if Big Sur compatible driver is available from the vendor's site before upgrading. https://appletoolbox.com/printers-compatible-with-macos-big-sur/#List_of_Printers_Compatible_With_Big_Sur has links to several vendor pages.
- Some applications will install via JAMF, but may need to manually approve some System and Kernel extensions for Applications like Google Drive Stream, Box, and ESET.
  - This is the result of some software vendors not updating their application quickly enough to support Big Sur on both intel and M1 Macs.
- Google Drive File Stream is fully compatible and launches with Intel Macs on Big Sur.
  - Google Drive File Stream is not yet compatible with M1 Macs. Google has said likely by April.
  - In the mean time, use the web interface to download files.
- Adobe Creative Cloud does work on Big Sur but does have issues on M1 Macs.
  - Intel Macs appear to run Adobe CC as expected.
- ESET Antivirus requires 6.10 to be compatible with macOS Big Sur.
  - EUT has updated its package to the latest version and distributed it to managed computers in JAMF.
  - ESET has stated that some functionality (including web and email scanning) is limited.
- Viscosity 1.8.5 continuously crashed on launch. Viscosity 1.9.0 also crashed initially, but then let me log in to connect and ran fine after that.
  - Viscosity 1.9.0, the latest version should be installed from https://vpn.maine.edu.
- MS Remote Desktop v 10.4.1 - could connect to remote machines, but the video did not come through from remote machines.
  - MS Remote Desktop v 10.5 does seem to work now.
- PaperCut client has installation and launch issues.
  - Tested on Big Sur 11.2 02/09/2021 and Papercut v20 installs and runs.
- eduroam onboarding fails, but existing eduroam configurations continue to work after upgrade.
- VMWare Fusion, Parallels and other virtual machine software can only host Mac and Linux vms if it is Mac that has the new Apple Silicon M1 chip. Boot Camp is deprecated on the M1 Macs as well.
  - The latest versions of Parallels and VMware Fusion do work in Big Sur if the Mac still has the Intel chip.
- Rosetta 2 is not installed on MacOS Big Sur by default. In order for new M1 chip Macs to run software designed for Intel Chips using Rosetta 2 emulation will need to install it. The following command can be run from Terminal to install it.
  - Rosetta 2 is installed on all JAMF-managed M1 Macs by default.
- Microsoft Office 2019/O365 I required for macOS Big Sur.
  - Office 2016 for Mac ended support in October 2020.
  - Upgrade is available via the UMS Application Catalog.

Note: Other Apps have not been tested yet.

However, if ordering a new Mac, it is still recommended that people order the Macs with Apple Silicon M1 chip because these issues are expected to be resolved in the near future and the M1 will have longer support than an Intel Mac.

Environment

Mac Big Sur M1 Chip
Mac Big Sur Intel Chip

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