![Hackintosh-780x495](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Hackintosh-780x495.jpg)
A Hackintosh (a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[Hack
Hack may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Games
* ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game
* ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia franchise ''.hack''
Music
* ''Hack'' (album), a 199 ...](_blank)
" and "
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
") is a computer that runs
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
's Macintosh operating system
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
(formerly named "Mac OS X" or "OS X") on
computer hardware
Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the computer case, case, central processing unit (CPU), Random-access memory, random access memory (RAM), Computer monitor, monitor, Computer mouse, mouse, Computer keyboard, ...
not authorized for the purpose by Apple.
This can also include running Macintosh software on hardware it is not originally authorized for. ''"Hackintoshing"'' began as a result of
Apple's 2005 transition to Intel processors, away from
PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
. Since 2005, Mac computers use the same
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...
computer architecture
In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...
as many other desktop
PCs,
laptop
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
s, and
servers, meaning that in principle, the
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
making up macOS systems and software can be run on alternative platforms with minimal compatibility issues. Benefits cited for "Hackintoshing" can include cost (older, cheaper or commodity hardware), ease of repair and piecemeal upgrade, and freedom to use customized choices of components that are not available (or not available together) in the branded Apple products. macOS can also be run on several non-Apple
virtualization platforms, although such systems are not usually described as Hackintoshes. Hackintosh laptops are sometimes referred to as ''"Hackbooks"''.
Apple's
software license
A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source ...
for macOS only permits the software's use on computers that are "Apple-branded."
However, because modern Macintosh computers use
Intel-based hardware, there are few limitations keeping the software from running on other types of Intel-based PCs. Notably, companies such as
Psystar
Psystar Corporation was a company based in Miami, Florida, owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza who sold "Open Computers" though one article claimed "Psystar, run by HyperMegaNet, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, currently ships to 23 destinations inclu ...
have attempted to release products using macOS on non-Apple machines, though many Hackintosh systems are designed solely by macOS enthusiasts of various
hacking forums and communities. While commercial circumvention of the methods Apple uses to prevent macOS from being installed on non-Apple hardware is restricted in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
(DMCA),
specific changes to the law regarding the concept of
jailbreaking have placed circumvention methods like these into a
legal grey area.
In 2020, Apple
began to move to
ARM64
AArch64 or ARM64 is the 64-bit extension of the ARM architecture family.
It was first introduced with the Armv8-A architecture. Arm releases a new extension every year.
ARMv8.x and ARMv9.x extensions and features
Announced in October 2011, AR ...
-based
Apple silicon
Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture. It is the basis of most new Mac computers as well as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV, a ...
processors. The company has said it will eventually stop supporting the
Intel64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mo ...
architecture.
History
Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)
On June 6, 2005, Apple announced its plans to transition to
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
processors at their
Worldwide Developers Conference
The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in t ...
and made available a
prototype Intel-based Mac to selected developers at a cost of $999 (). Efforts immediately began to attempt to run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, but developers quickly found themselves with an error message saying that the PC hardware configurations were not supported.
On January 10, 2006, Apple released 10.4.4 with the first generation of Intel-based Macs, the iMac and the MacBook Pro. These machines used
Extensible Firmware Interface
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a set of specifications written by the UEFI Forum. They define the architecture of the platform firmware used for booting and its interface for interaction with the operating system. Examples of f ...
(EFI) platform firmware instead of the older style
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...
found on most x86 motherboards at the time. On February 14, 2006, an initial "
hack
Hack may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Games
* ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game
* ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia franchise ''.hack''
Music
* ''Hack'' (album), a 199 ...
" of v10.4.4 was released on the Internet by a programmer with the pseudonym ''crg92''. Within hours Apple released the 10.4.5 update, which was then hacked by the same author within two weeks. On April 3, 2006, Apple released their 10.4.6 update and again
patches were released within two weeks that allowed users to install most of this update on non-Apple computers, although this did not include the updated kernel in 10.4.6. In June 2006, an updated
MacBook Pro was released for the 10.4.7 update for non-Apple computers using the 10.4.4 kernel.
Up to the release of the 10.4.8 update, all OSx86 patches used the 10.4.4 kernel with the rest of the operating system at version 10.4.8. However, the newer frameworks relied on the newer kernels and this led to users of 10.4.8 encountering many problems. Apple also started making more use of
SSE3
SSE3, Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions (PNI), is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the IA-32 (x86) architecture. Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revis ...
instructions on their hardware making it even more difficult for users with CPUs supporting only SSE2 (such as older
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
s) to get a fully compatible system running. To solve this problem, hackers from the community released kernels where those instructions were emulated with
SSE2
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. It extends the earlier Streamin ...
equivalents, although this produced a performance penalty.
Throughout the years, many "
distros" were released for download over the Internet. These distros were copies of the Mac OS X installer disc modified to include additional components necessary to make the OS run on the non-Apple hardware. A prominent member of the community, JaS, released many distros of Mac OS X Tiger containing patched kernels. Some other popular distros are iATKOS, Kalyway, iPC and iDeneb. Distros have fallen out of favour as the OSx86 community grew, as new bootloaders were developed that made it possible to use actual copies of the OS X Installer.
Mac OS X Leopard (10.5)
As early as v10.5 build 9A466 the community has maintained a version of Leopard that can run on non-Apple hardware. A hacker by the handle of BrazilMac created one of the earliest patching processes that made it convenient for users to install onto 3rd party hardware by using a legally obtained, retail version of Apple . This simplification made the BrazilMac patch and its later revisions quickly the most popular choice for many distros. Five of the most popular builds go by the name JaS, Kalyway, iATKOS, iPC and iDeneb – although more recently these builds are on the way out as the Boot-132 method (described below) gains popularity. However, all of these compilations rely on the work of kernel hackers made by Lorem (build 9A466), SynthetiX (builds 9A499, 9A527 and 9A559), ToH (builds 9A581, 9B13 and 9B18) and more recently a group calling themselves StageXNU (now called Voodoo) (Darwin 9.4.0). Their contributions trickled down into the various Mac OSx86 installers, readily available on the Internet. They continue to be refined and updated builds released, not just to maintain compatibility with Apple releases but an ever-increasing number of third-party components. The OSx86 community has been quick to make the necessary modifications to enable Apple's latest releases to run on non-Apple hardware. Within hours of Leopard's release, an AMD/Intel SSE2/3 Kernel Patcher was created that removed the
HPET
The High Precision Event Timer (HPET) is a hardware timer available in modern x86-compatible personal computers. Compared to older types of timers available in the x86 architecture, HPET allows more efficient processing of highly timing-sensitiv ...
requirement from an original untouched mach_kernel file, a core component of the Mac OS.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6)
When "Snow Leopard" was released, Russian hacker netkas created a version of Chameleon that can boot Mac OS X v10.6. The main problem was that many people were forced to modify DSDT or use kexts due to some specific issues. As soon as possible modbin and dmitrik released test versions of kernel that allow to boot Snow Leopard on AMD machines. Stable XNU kernels for v10.6 were released by Qoopz and Pcj. There are some popular builds based on Retail by the name Universal (Intel only), Hazard, and iAtkos. Since v10.6.2 Nawcom, Qoopz, and Andy Vandijck have been working on Legacy kernel for unsupported CPUs.
Mac OS X Lion (10.7)
When Apple released the Developer Preview 1, a Russian Hackintosh developer usr-sse2 was the first who created a method to install Lion. The method consists of deploying Mac OS X v10.7 image on a flash drive, and booting from it via XPC UEFI Bootloader (See
DUET
A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo ...
below). After some changes were made to the Chameleon source code, it became possible to boot Lion with an updated version of Chameleon. After a while Dmitrik also known as Bronzovka had luck with creating a kernel that supported AMD systems; after a few months (10.7.3 V2 With AMD Support) and iAtkos L2 (10.7.2 Only Intel) were released.
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
Shortly after the release of Developer Preview 1, some unknown developers managed to install this version of OS X to their PC by using a modified version of the Chameleon Bootloader. This version was released via the main project starting at version r1997 to the general public. Due to the problems sourced during the Lion era, other ways of installing and required patches were never made public, which leaves the scene in an unknown state towards Mountain Lion.
Since the retail release of Mountain Lion several users have reported successful setups using installers purchased from the
Mac App Store
The App Store (also known as the Mac App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" ...
, along with updated versions of Chameleon and other tools including distros.
Niresh's Distro (10.8 Intel only) was first released and then was updated to 10.8.2 (With AMD and Intel) and 10.8.5 (With UEFI Support, AMD and Intel Support) versions; iAtkos ML2 was released after Niresh's Release.
OS X Mavericks (10.9)
Multiple new kernels for Hackintosh 10.9 are in the works, although there still are minor issues with most of them. Most of these kernels aim to allow users to run Mavericks on AMD and older Intel CPUs, which lack certain instruction sets of the latest Intel CPUs. Significant efforts have been made to emulate instruction sets like
SSSE3
Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSSE3 or SSE3S) is a SIMD instruction set created by Intel and is the fourth iteration of the SSE technology.
History
SSSE3 was first introduced with Intel processors based on the Core microarchitecture ...
, which are not present on AMD K10-based CPUs, and older Intel CPUs, like the Intel Core Duo.
AMD's latest CPUs, from the '
Bulldozer
A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...
' architecture onwards, contain almost all the latest instruction sets, and hence, some kernels with full
SSE4
SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; more ...
support have also been released. After two months, Niresh's Distro was released for Mavericks, which supports AMD CPUs and latest Intel CPUs. It also has a custom kernel that allows Intel Atom processors to boot into Mavericks. Niresh's was the only free distro that was released for Mavericks, since the iAtkos Team decided to release their Mavericks distro for specific hardware on donation basis.
OS X Yosemite (10.10)
After the initial release of OS X Yosemite 10.10 BETA, various developers took on the role of updating their bootloaders for the system. Members of OSx86 forum InsanelyMac set to update the EFI Bootloader Chameleon for this new OS release. Some time later, Niresh (an independent OSx86 developer) released a standalone tool known as Yosemite Zone, which would automatically install the new OS and other various features on a non-Apple device with minimal input. This method consisted of
torrenting an OS X 10.10 DMG onto a USB flash drive with MacPwn Vanilla Installation. Unibeast was updated to support Yosemite, and a distribution of Yosemite Zone was released with AMD processor support.
A vanilla installation of Yosemite is possible via Insanelymac's Pandora Box Beta 2.0 and UniBeast. This type installation uses as few kexts (drivers) as possible in addition to using an unaltered version of the OS X installation app, and is preferred over distributions.
OS X El Capitan (10.11)
Both Clover and Chameleon were updated to be compatible with
El Capitan
El Capitan ( es, El Capitán; "the Captain" or "the Chief") is a vertical Rock formations in the United States, rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The El Capitan Granite, granit ...
. Unibeast and MacPwn were updated to support El Capitan as well, since El Capitan, Unibeast (and Multibeast) use the Clover bootloader instead of Chimera (a Chameleon-based bootloader).
macOS Sierra (10.12)
Clover and Chameleon were updated to be compatible with
Sierra. UniBeast, Pandora Box and MacPwn were updated to support it and a distribution of Sierra Zone (10.12.3) was released with AMD processor support.
macOS High Sierra (10.13)
Clover, MacPwn, OpenCore and UniBeast were updated to support it. A distro of High Sierra Zone by Hackintosh Zone (10.13) was released with AMD Processor support including Ryzen CPUs.
macOS Mojave (10.14)
Clover was updated to support Mojave with revision 4514. UniBeast also received Mojave support for
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
-based machines. A distro of Hackintosh Mojave by Hackintosh Zone (10.14) was released. Apple has also discontinued support for NVIDIA Web Drivers from the first release of macOS Mojave, to current.
macOS Catalina (10.15)
Clover r4945 was the first version of Clover to support macOS Catalina, beginning with the first developer beta of macOS Catalina 10.15. UniBeast was updated for macOS Catalina support, but there has not yet been a MultiBeast release for Catalina. For the first public stable release of macOS 10.15, AMD patches were also released, allowing the booting of macOS Catalina on AMD CPU systems. A new bootloader began to emerge during this time, called OpenCore,OpenCore is not Clover's successor, it belongs to Vit9696's modified boot for the old version of OpenCore, and it belongs to the same status as Clover. and a necessity for AMD users beyond macOS 10.15.2.
macOS Big Sur (11)
macOS Big Sur works on Intel processors. But in 2020, Apple began to
move to ARM64-based
Apple silicon
Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture. It is the basis of most new Mac computers as well as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV, a ...
processors, and will eventually stop supporting the Intel64 architecture.
This may mean the end of Hackintosh computers in their current form.
macOS Monterey (12)
Some new features of macOS Monterey, such as a 3D globe of Earth in
Maps
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
and text-to-speech in additional languages, work only on Apple silicon processors.
Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie (born 1972) is a Canadian independent blogger and YouTube content creator. Ritchie is known for his podcasts including Debug, Iterate, Vector, ZEN & TECH, Review, The TV Show, and as co-host of ''MacBreak Weekly'' on the TWiT Netwo ...
has speculated that the features require Apple's
Neural Engine. Apple has provided no official explanation.
macOS Ventura (13)
It is very important to note that in this version, Apple officially drops support for 7th-generation Intel processors. Users who are using this generation processor will need to change their Hackintosh Models or they may meet problems. About new features, Apple improves the simplicity and connectivity of this system, including the change of page of system settings (which is now like iPadOS), Continuity Camera, new mail functions, new apps (Weather and Clock), Metal 3, and Stage Manager.
Legal issues and Apple’s objections
Apple does not authorize the use of macOS on any x86 PC other than those which it has manufactured. After announcing its switch to Intel's chips, the company used technical means (although not the
Trusted Platform Module
Trusted Platform Module (TPM, also known as ISO/IEC 11889) is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys. The term can also refer to a ch ...
, or TPM, as has been widely misreported), to tie macOS to the systems it distributed to developers. The method they used involved checking for an SMC chip using DSMOS (Don't Steal MacOS.kext).
The macOS
EULA
An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user, generally made available to the customer via a retailer acting as an intermediary. A EULA specifies in detail the rights and restr ...
forbids installations of macOS on a "non-Apple-branded computer".
On July 3, 2008, Apple filed a lawsuit against
Psystar Corporation
Psystar Corporation was a company based in Miami, Florida, owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza who sold "Open Computers" though one article claimed "Psystar, run by HyperMegaNet, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, currently ships to 23 destinations includ ...
for violating this restriction, among other claims. Apple claimed Psystar "violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by dodging copy-protection technologies Apple uses to protect ." Apple employs technological protection measures that effectively control access to Apple's copyrighted works. Specifically, Apple charged Psystar with acquiring or creating code that "avoids, bypasses, removes, descrambles, decrypts, deactivates or impairs a technological protection measure without Apple's authority for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to Apple's copyrighted works." The legal brief revealed that Apple considers the methods that it uses to prevent macOS from being installed on non-Apple hardware to be protected by the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
(DMCA).
On November 13, 2009, the court granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and found Apple's copyrights were violated as well as the DMCA when Psystar installed Apple's operating system on non-Apple computers. A hearing on remedies was set for December 14.
On January 14, 2009, the Gadget Lab site of ''Wired Magazine'' posted a video tutorial for installing on an MSI Wind netbook, but removed it following a complaint from Apple. Textual instructions remain, but include an EULA violation disclaimer.
On May 15, 2012, the case
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
vs.
Psystar Corporation
Psystar Corporation was a company based in Miami, Florida, owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza who sold "Open Computers" though one article claimed "Psystar, run by HyperMegaNet, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, currently ships to 23 destinations includ ...
ended. The court ruled that Psystar had "violated Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works," putting an end to the case.
Hacking approaches
Kernel hacks
When copies of Mac OS X Tiger started running on non-Apple hardware, it was found that some processors were unable to run the OS.
Rosetta
Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Ro ...
, a binary translator that made it possible to run PowerPC programs on Intel processors, (and later the kernel itself) required the support of the
SSE3
SSE3, Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions (PNI), is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the IA-32 (x86) architecture. Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revis ...
instruction set. To circumvent this, programmers in the community released patched kernels, which included support for emulating SSE3 instructions using
SSE2
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. It extends the earlier Streamin ...
equivalents. In October 2005, Apple released update 10.4.3 to developers that required
NX bit
The NX bit (no-execute) is a technology used in CPUs to segregate areas of memory for use by either storage of processor instructions or for storage of data, a feature normally only found in Harvard architecture processors. However, the NX bit is ...
microprocessor support; however, patches were released to circumvent this as well. Patched kernels were also later released that supported AMD processors.
When Mac OS X Leopard released on October 26, 2007, patches were created to remove the
HPET
The High Precision Event Timer (HPET) is a hardware timer available in modern x86-compatible personal computers. Compared to older types of timers available in the x86 architecture, HPET allows more efficient processing of highly timing-sensitiv ...
requirement from the kernel. Efforts were also made to emulate the
SSSE3
Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSSE3 or SSE3S) is a SIMD instruction set created by Intel and is the fourth iteration of the SSE technology.
History
SSSE3 was first introduced with Intel processors based on the Core microarchitecture ...
instruction set for processors that did not support it. The kernel used by OS X Mavericks made use of SSSE3 instructions, requiring those patches.
Boot loaders and emulators
EFI emulation
Extensible Firmware Interface
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a set of specifications written by the UEFI Forum. They define the architecture of the platform firmware used for booting and its interface for interaction with the operating system. Examples of f ...
(EFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. Since emulating the EFI does not generally require copying or modifying macOS, it is considered by some hackers to be the legal way of installing macOS on non-Apple computers (despite being untested in courts).
The work started with EFI emulation in the form of David Elliot (dfe)'s modified version of Boot-132 called "Darwin/x86", which has a "FakeEFI" system that emulates EFI. In early November 2007, a group of hackers (fronted by a Russian hacker known as Netkas), using Elliot's code, developed a method of emulating an EFI environment using a specially modified Darwin bootloader. In practical terms, this meant that regular PCs meeting a set of hardware requirements could now be "seen" as real Macintosh computers by the OS, allowing the use of unmodified, "stock" Apple kernels (as long as the CPU supports it) and thus giving more transparent and reliable operation. Several methods for real world deployment of this innovative solution have arisen around the Internet. An explanation of this achievement along with a usage guide was provided by the website DigitMemo.com.
True EFI emulation was a highly sought after asset for the OSx86 community. Previous efforts based upon Apple's open source Darwin Project and Hackintosh gurus allowed users to use macOS on normal PCs, with patched kernels/kernel modules that simply bypassed EFI. Using the EFI patch, a Hackintosh could boot off "
vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia'').
Pollination is required to make the p ...
" (unmodified) macOS kernels and use vanilla kernel extensions. This not only allowed the system to be compatible with future system updates, but also offered increased stability. This method also circumvents one aspect of Apple's End User License Agreement, which states that the modification of non-Open Source components of the OS is forbidden.
In mid-2008, a new commercial product, EFi-X, was released that claims to allow full, simple booting off official Leopard install disks, and a subsequent install, without any patching required, but this is possibly a repackaging of Boot-132 technology in a
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
-attached device.
Rebel EFI
Psystar Corporation was a company based in Miami, Florida, owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza who sold "Open Computers" though one article claimed "Psystar, run by HyperMegaNet, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, currently ships to 23 destinations includ ...
is another commercial product that also seems to use Open Source software.
It was thought that Windows 7's support of EFI would result in PC motherboards replacing BIOS with EFI. MSI announced the Efinity mainboard in early 2008. As of 2011, EFI-based computers have entered the market, however none can natively boot Mac OS X due to the lack of a
HFS+
HFS Plus or HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended or HFS Extended) is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1 ...
driver in the EFI implementation.
Boot-132
Boot-132 is a bootloader provided by Apple for loading the XNU kernel. In mid-2008, a new modified BOOT-132 came on to the scene. This method allows users to conduct the Leopard-based OSx86 installation using a stock, retail-purchased copy of Leopard and eradicates the necessity of a hacked installation like JaS or Kalyway (mentioned previously). The Boot-132 bootloader essentially preloads an environment on the system from which Leopard can boot and operate. The bootloader stores the necessary files (kext files) in a .img collection or simply a folder. The luxury of this new installation method includes the ability to boot and install from a retail Leopard DVD and update straight from Apple without breaking the DMCA. The only possible problem here is that it breaks the macOS EULA.
The bootloader behaves like the
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
kernel: one can use an mboot-compatible (a patched
syslinux was used for the hack) bootloader that tells boot-dfe about the .img file (the
ramdisk or
initrd
In Linux systems, initrd (''initial ramdisk'') is a scheme for loading a temporary root file system into memory, to be used as part of the Linux startup process. initrd and initramfs refer to two different methods of achieving this. Both are comm ...
, as it's known by Linux users), and boot-dfe will then use the kexts (or mkext) from it. This new boot-dfe has been tested with the retail Leopard DVD, and it can boot, install, run Leopard without having to build a modified DVD.
Chameleon
Since the early developer builds of Mac OS X v10.6, members of the OSx86 community had been booting the new operating system using yet another bootloader called PC EFI provided by Russian hacker Netkas or the bootloader of the Voodoo team's Chameleon. Chameleon is based on David Elliot's Boot-132. The bootloader supports ACPI, SMBIOS, graphics, ethernet, and some other injections. It allows to boot up macOS on non-Macintosh hardware. Chameleon supports a lot of AMD as well as Nvidia graphics cards. There are a lot of forks of it by different developers; the latest version upstream is 2.2 from 2014.
Clover
Clover is a GUI bootloader for multiple operating systems that supports either UEFI or the legacy BIOS mode. To support booting EFI code, one of the two methods are conventionally taken: either Elliot's FakeEFI was used, or an actual open-source EFI system based on Intel's
TianoCore
TianoCore EDK II (formerly Tiano) is the reference implementation of UEFI by Intel. EDK is the abbreviation for EFI Development Kit and is developed by the TianoCore community. TianoCore EDK II is the de facto standard generic UEFI services implem ...
called DUET (Developer's UEFI Emulation) was flashed into the motherboard. However, modern, non-Apple EFI firmware as well as Duet cannot directly load macOS due to various incompatibilities, mainly around the HFS+ file system but also due to the quirks of individual vendors. One more step was needed to load macOS systems: an EFI application to rectify these problems and bridge the gap.
Beginning in March 2011, Slice discussed his idea with other community members, resulting in the development of a bootloader that can do both: emulate an EFI firmware of one's choice or use a Real UEFI firmware to boot Mac OS X. It contains EFI applications and drivers for correctly reading an HFS+ disk and patching EFI tables to prepare the system for starting macOS. As of 2020, it is actively maintained.
Ozmosis
Ozmosis is a UEFI DXE bootloader for Z77MX-QUO-AOS, developed by QUO Computer Inc. that is defunct in late 2010s.
It offers to run macOS through motherboard’s UEFI rom, and no need additional drive space for bootloader.
OpenCore
OpenCore, started in 2019, is another bootloader developed to run macOS on UEFI or BIOS systems as well as old Mac devices that are no longer supported. Compared to Clover, it is said to provide overall better patching and emulation as well as a faster boot time. The project has also taken over the development of some patches, meaning future versions may only work with OpenCore.
Live DVD
In March 2007, the OSx86 community made some significant progress with the development of a
Live DVD
A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading fr ...
. The Live DVD allows booting to a working system with Mac OS X v10.4.8.
On January 2, 2009, InsanelyMac's Live DVD team published a new method by which a Mac OS X v10.5.x Live DVD could be produced, allowing users to boot a fully working macOS desktop from a DVD or USB flash drive. The method was more reliable than previous methods because it manipulated Apple's existing Netboot and Imageboot functionalities and behaved as if the system were running off a network disk. It was easier to produce; requiring only a single script to be added to an existing installation. Distributions of the live DVD have been made since its inception. Since then, it is notable that this method has been shown to work on normal Apple Mac hardware.
Virtual machine
It is possible to run macOS as a
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
inside other operating systems installed on standard PC hardware by using
virtualization
In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...
software such as
Oracle's VirtualBox
Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation.
VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by ...
(though this is not officially supported by Oracle). It is also possible to install macOS on Windows and Linux versions of
VMware
VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.
VMware's desktop software ru ...
software through the use of patches, even though the company states that running macOS is supported for VMware running on only Apple computers in compliance with Apple's licensing policies.
macOS on a virtual machine is typically very slow due to the operating system's heavy use of hardware video acceleration, which macOS does not support when using the virtual video devices typically used by virtual machine software. A work around is to attach a physical GPU to a virtual machine, however this requires a macOS supported GPU in the system that is not in use by the host operating system.
See also
*
Macintosh clone
A Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of "Clone (computing), Clone" and "Macintosh"), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. The earliest Mac clones were based on Macintosh clon ...
– About clones and emulators of various Macintosh models
*
List of computer system emulators
This article lists software and hardware that emulates computing platforms.
The host in this article is the system running the emulator, and the guest is the system being emulated.
The list is organized by '' guest operating system'' (the syste ...
– a list of Macintosh and other computer system emulators
*
Mac transition to Intel processors
Apple transitioned the CPUs of their Mac and Xserve computers from PowerPC to the x86 architecture from Intel.
The change was announced at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who said Apple would gr ...
*
Star Trek project
Star Trek is the code name that was given to a secret prototype project, running a port of Macintosh System 7 and its applications on Intel-compatible x86 personal computers. The project, starting in February 1992, was conceived in collaboration ...
References
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MacOS