Re: install tlgpg fails

> On 21 Feb 2026, at 20:34, Bruno Voisin <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 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.

Actually I was too hasty, I should have tried for xz.universal-darwin:

% vtool -show-build /usr/local/texlive/2026basic/tlpkg/installer/xz/xz.universal-darwin 
/usr/local/texlive/2026basic/tlpkg/installer/xz/xz.universal-darwin (architecture x86_64):
Load command 9
      cmd LC_BUILD_VERSION
  cmdsize 32
 platform MACOS
    minos 10.14
      sdk 10.14
   ntools 1
     tool LD
  version 450.3
/usr/local/texlive/2026basic/tlpkg/installer/xz/xz.universal-darwin (architecture arm64):
Load command 10
      cmd LC_BUILD_VERSION
  cmdsize 32
 platform MACOS
    minos 11.0
      sdk 11.1
   ntools 1
     tool LD
  version 609.8

So the Intel part of xz.universal-darwin should run on macOS 10.14 (it seems to be the 2024 build, unchanged), and the problem is not a failure of xz.universal-darwin --version.

As you observed, it's tlmgr that calls xz.x86_64-darwinlegacy, based on your macOS version. See lines 403 ff of TLUtils.pm, which include sophisticated heuristics updated for the 2026 builds:

macOS 11 and above -> universal-darwin

macOS 10.7-10.15 -> x86_64-darwinlegacy

macOS 10.6 64-bit -> x86_64-darwinlegacy

macOS 10.6 32-bit -> i386-darwin

macOS 10.5 and below -> i386-darwin or powerpc-darwin

Bruno