Re: install tlgpg fails

> Adam Maxwell wrote:
> 
> Looks like tlmgr is trying to use xz.x86_64-darwinlegacy (which does not exist) instead of xz.universal-darwin, even if I set it explicitly. I'm running Mac OS X 10.14.6, which maybe isn't supported by MacTeX (in which case it shouldn't install).

Indeed, MacTeX (and BasicTeX) 2026 are for macOS 11 Big Sur and above. This will be in the MacTeX 2026 web pages, but of course they're not live yet:



This is also mentioned on the Welcome screen of the install package, which starts with

Basic TeX 2026 (based on TeXLive 2026)
March, 2026
For Big Sur (macOS 11) and Higher
Intel and Arm

But I agree that's easily missed (being myself one of the people who don't usually read such info, except when testing).

In any case, you're perfectly right: something's wrong. Uncompressing the flat install package with say

pkgutil --expand-full mactex-basictex-20260207.pkg mactex-basictex-20260207

(or using Pacifist if you prefer a GUI), then looking at the Distribution file inside, you get

        <allowed-os-versions>
            <os-version min="10.14"/>
        </allowed-os-versions>

instead of 11. Same for MacTeX and BasicTeX. So the package will install on macOS 10.14 Mojave and above.

It's actually an overlook (code carried over from last year): take

https://svn.tug.org:8369/texlive/trunk/Master/source/mactexdoc-2026.zip

(assuming Anubis doesn't block you -- it blocks me again currently -- I use rsync to overcome that). This documents the way MacTeX is built. The file distribution.xml in various build directories contains these lines

        <allowed-os-versions>
            <os-version min="10.14"/>
        </allowed-os-versions>

Easily corrected!

You can actually check which macOS versions the TL binaries run on, with

% vtool -show-build `which pdftex` 
/Library/TeX/texbin/pdftex (architecture x86_64):
Load command 10
      cmd LC_BUILD_VERSION
  cmdsize 32
 platform MACOS
    minos 11.0
      sdk 11.3
   ntools 1
     tool LD
  version 650.9
/Library/TeX/texbin/pdftex (architecture arm64):
Load command 10
      cmd LC_BUILD_VERSION
  cmdsize 32
 platform MACOS
    minos 11.0
      sdk 12.1
   ntools 1
     tool LD
  version 711.0

This tells the Intel build was compiled with the macOS 11 Big Sur SDK and the ARM build with the macOS 12 Monterey SDK, in both cases for Big Sur and above. Dick builds these separately, then combines them with lipo.

Bruno