How to run macOS on Linux (without too much hassle)
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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:35 Sponsor: Squarespace
01:33 Quickemu & QuickGUI
03:02 Graphical Setup
04:51 CLI setup
05:18 Install macOS
07:38 Configure the VM
09:56 Limitations
13:01 What you can do
15:25 Sponsor: Tuxedo Computers
16:34 Support the channel
#Linux #vm #macos #macosventura #macosmonterey
QuickEmu: https://github.com/quickemu-project
QuickGUI: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickgui/releases
Quickemu thing is a simple program that uses Qemu to automatically create vms for a bunch of operating systems, whether that’s macOS, Linux or Windows.
So, if you went for the GUI, it’s all extremely simple: you launch QuickGUI after installing it. The app might take a while to display anything inside the window, but once it does, you can click on “Create new machines”.
You then get to pick the directory where you want to set things up, and the operating system you want to install. Once the download is done, click “dismiss”, and then the little “X” in the top left to close the downloader part of the app. You can then click “manage existing machines”, and click the little “play” button next to your macOS VM, and you’re good to go, you should land in the setup for macOS.
If you don’t want to use a GUI, you can run quickemu using the command line.
quickget macos monterey
quickemu –vm macos-monterey.conf
Inside macOS, open disk utility, and select the hard drive that was created for you, it should be about 100 gigs. Click the erase button in the top right corner, and rename the disk.
Confirm, and then close Disk utility. Click “reinstall mac os monterey”, and proceed to select your recently erased hard drive, and to accept the licensing terms.
The install will then run, it takes a long while. On my own computer, it took about 1h to complete, so be patient. Once the install is done, you should be able to reboot into a macOS session.
To change the configuration of the VM, you have a text file, that is stored in the directory you picked at install, in my case, it’s in my home folder. It should be called macos-monterey.conf.
By default, you’ll only use 2 CPU cores, I changed that to 4, as my system can handle that without any problem. Just change the number after the cpu_cores parameter.
If you want to give the VM more RAM, add the following line:
ram=”16G”
You’ll also want to enable TRIM: open the terminal app from macOS
sudo trimforce enable
If you want to pass a CD ROM as an ISO to the VM, add this to the config file of the VM:
fixed_iso=”/path/to/image.iso”
Now, of course, it’s a VM, so there are limitations. First, 3D acceleration won’t be good here.
If you can’t login to any icloud services or the mac App Store, you’ll also have to run a little command.
To solve that, you can open the macOS system preferences, then go to network, and delete all the network devices.
Then you’ll need to open the macOS terminal app, and type the following command line:
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
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Thank you for the discovery of this tool.
Does this work for building an IOS app in xcode and signing it?
I though you will do some magic on how to run macos operating system on the linux kernel 🤦
So if you install Linux on a Mac and then install MacOs like this it's legal as it's running on Apple hardware? 🤔
I've been messing with QEMU lately on my EndeavourOS system since my Windows install go to where it boots really slowly. Can't wait to build a new system where I can virtualize my Windows-based gaming PC.
Will this allow for updating airpods?
It could be funny to do this on a Mac running Asahi Linux
I edited the .conf file before starting the VM, added 8 cores (have 20 cores on my CPU) and 16GB RAM. Installation took about 30mins. It's not as fast as a real Mac obviously, but I need it for occasional use supporting my father who has a Mac and is totally useless at using it (thanks PC World for telling him it's the best he could get when all he needed was a basic PC running Windows). So at least now I can talk him through his issues (and there are a lot!). Told him to return it, but he's stubborn and wants to learn it.
Thanks for introducing us to such a good virtual box alternative
Do windows 11 next.. maybe
I also like dockerOSX but is more hussle than this
I feel like I am stuck with virtualbox. Trying to figure out bridged networks or network adapters seemed more than it was worth. I use virtual box for a work vm and needed to PXE to get the image
Well, the only thing i like about Mac OS is the old Text-To-Speech voices. Zarvox (from the legacy voices of mac speech) is my favorite one. I might give that one a shot!
I woul love to try mac os but the cheapest computer apple sells is 700€
The real question is not "How" to run macOS on Linux but "Why" would you want to run macOS … But I'm glad we have the freedom to do it ! Even if I cannot fathom why someone would want to do something so weird
Chasing that MACOS life is what lead me back to getting into Linux in the first place. I did have a nice hacktinsoh for like two years until Just got a really cheap M1 Mac MIni. I love this macmini, but I still run Fedora on my Laptop and other desktop. If I didn't have an iphone (along with ALL of my friends and family) I'd get a lot less value out of macos myself.
I find most of my use is Fedora daily and I'll remote into my mac when I need it.
as a mac user i learnt something new today. sudo trimforce enable. thank you 🙂
I'm going to try macOS to find other aspects where Linux is better
monteray is not latest macOS 😭
Does this quickemu do weird things?
Say I wanna just create the VM on my Arch laptop and then migrate it to my RHEL server without needing to install quickemu there, can I do that?
I.e. is this just a regular KVM/QEMU/libvirt VM or does it use some special sauce?
I had a MacBook Air with Linux Mint (only) for a while until the plastic used for the screen completely decomposed.
I now have a 2019 16" MacBook pro that has a stupid security chip which makes it very hard (impossible) to install Linux Mint. So I'm forced to use the crappy MacOS.
I really dislike Macs, almost as much as I dislike Windows.
the reason why I need macOS is for XCode to test some weird Safari-specific bugs we have on our frontend from time to time, and also the freaking facebook in-app browser from iOS.
its better to make a triple boot (MacOS, windoze,and Linux)
I did it on my dell Optiplex 3080 micro and made a 15minutes install guide too.
Very comprehensive. There are a couple of graphic programs that I'm interested in that are not available on Linux but are on MAC so I might give this a try. Thank you.
Looking at all the options in the quickgui, I'm excited to use this app to test multiple OS configurations for my web apps without having too much hassle to set things up. So much better than VirtualBox, and way easier than attempting a Hackintosh! Such a great guide, thanks for sharing!
You need macOS to get your 2FA keys out of iCloud
Interesting approach. I run Macos with gpu passthrough on proxmox since years. For science only, as i still dont like Macos🤣 This is all using standard debian tools. A lot of sources on the internet.
just a question can I run an ios emulator inside of it?
Nice! This is just what I need, I have an Apple Time Machine NAS filled with data I can’t access natively from Linux. This should allow me to migrate it to Linux friendly storage.
Is it working on Amd CPU?
I can't use it on Fedora because of DNF instead of APT and I can't use the PPA. I guess it'd be easy once the GUI is opened but I can't even get to that point. Anyone knows what I should use in the terminal to get to where the video is starting?
Great video, Nick.
A little unrelated, but I just wondered: What are you using to sync your Nextcloud to your local PC? I used the official Nextcloud client, but regardless of the packaging format, it tends to be buggy. I'd rather not risk any data with syncing issues…
would like to get quickgui flatpak
The title should be "How to Install macOS without bleeding and wanting to die"
I absolutely love using Quickemu, I can’t even remember how I found about it in the first place about a year or so ago. It is so easy to spin up a Linux VM, macOS on the other hand is a little bit more difficult – I’ve had issues, but that could because I’m using an AMD CPU, as opposed to an Intel CPU.
The only issue that I have with it is that it doesn’t seem very easy to do GPU pass-through or to bridge the NIC. it’s one of the things that I like about other VM tools and platforms like Proxmox where setting up both is fairly simple and I can set up a static IP address so I can access my VM with a known IP address.
Linux simply Rocks, I use RichARCH btw. With it I was able to get Arch Linux up and running simply and quickly with kickstart like automation features.
The only thing I love about MacOS is it's visual design. Matter of taste of course but I haven't seen any design that I'd like even remotely as much. Still not worth using it tho.
I just use the docker container. If you want a VM, I'd use MySpaghetti, it builds the VM using the VM.. Docker is faster and more stable though.