macOS 11 Big Sur and MacPorts

[Ryan Schmidt]

Apple has announced that macOS 11 Big Sur will be released tomorrow, November 12, 2020. In the coming days we will either release an installer for MacPorts 2.6.3 for macOS 11 or will release a new version of MacPorts with installers for all OS versions including macOS 11.

It is likely that many ports will still fail to build on macOS 11 at this point. And for those that do build, we won't start building archives for macOS 11 until after it's released, and once we start it will take weeks to build everything, meaning if you upgrade early, it's likely you'll have to build ports from source, which takes time.

So as with all other major OS versions, I encourage you to wait awhile before upgrading to macOS 11 if you want a smoother transition for your MacPorts software.

Once you do upgrade, as always, you should follow the migration instructions:

https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration

And if you find a problem, search our issue tracker and file a ticket if there isn't already one, or submit a pull request if you know the fix. Thanks.

-Ryan