macOS

17 Articles

Easy Hackintosh With Docker-OSX: Soon To Be Impossible?

November 20, 2023 by 44 Comments

The Docker-OSX project has to be among one of the easiest ways to get a fully functional Hackintosh off the ground on any Linux or Windows (10+) system, with the Docker image handling the heavy lifting of keeping the copy of MacOS happy and satisfied, even as the legality remains questionable, as we previously reported on in 2021. Officially, Apple’s software license for MacOS states that it can only be installed and use on Apple-branded hardware, which precludes the installation in e.g. a Docker container. This has left Docker-OSX in a gray zone where it’s technically illegal, but as it’s being advertised by its developer [Sick Codes] to be for use by security researchers who participate in Apple’s Bug Bounty program (including iOS, which requires XCode, which requires MacOS, etc.), it seems to slip through the cracks.

An obvious issue which may soon spell the end of MacOS-on-x86_64 and with it this use of Docker-OSX is that MacOS is now straddling Apple Silicon and Intel’s x86_64 architecture, with the latter no longer being sold by Apple’s in any of its systems after the recent introduction of its Apple Silicon-based Mac Pro. Although MacOS Sonoma (14) still supports x86_64, this support could be cut in MacOS 15 or 16, at which point running Docker-OSX with an Apple Silicon-only MacOS image would at the very least require an AArch64-based ARM system, though likely with an ISA extension level that matches the lowest-end Apple Silicon (ARMv8.5-A for M1).

Although this should not make it impossible to run Docker-OSX on future Linux (and perhaps Windows) systems on AArch64-based systems, it would make it more complicated and expensive as using one’s existing x86_64-based PC is no longer an option aside from adding a sluggish Qemu layer in between, which would add a significant performance penalty. If you are using Docker-OSX, what are your experiences and plans here?

Continue reading “Easy Hackintosh With Docker-OSX: Soon To Be Impossible?” →

LabVIEW Abandons Mac After Four Decades

October 15, 2023 by 52 Comments

When National Instruments (NI) released LabVIEW in 1986 it only targeted the Macintosh, with ports to other platforms coming later on in the 1990s. Now, NI has announced that with the next version in 2024, LabVIEW will only be released for Linux and Windows, leaving behind Apple’s software platform after nearly four decades. The news was covered by Apple Insider, which cites a forum thread on the NI website in which the details of LabVIEW for macOS are discussed. This news comes on the heels of the announcement of Valve dropping macOS support with Counter Strike 2.

In both cases the issue at hand appears to be both a combination of a low user count (less than 1% of CS:GO players) and the complexity of using proprietary APIs (Cocoa, Metal, etc.) that have led to the decision to terminate the macOS releases. Not that macOS users aren’t used to app-related bloodbaths after losing all 32-bit applications back in 2019, but the trend of more high-profile applications and games not supporting the OS does seem to be ramping up.

Perhaps the only positive news here for people who bought into the Apple hardware ecosystem here is that Windows runs on M1/M2 Macs, and there is even an experimental Linux distribution in the form of Asahi Linux to conceivably dual-boot into for those applications that just don’t want to run on Apple’s OS.

How To Install Mac OS On The Nintendo Wii

May 3, 2023 by 5 Comments

What if you could run Mac OS on a Nintendo Wii game console? That’s probably not a thought that has occurred to many Wii owners or Mac OS users, but that is no excuse not to give it a try, as [Michael] handily demonstrates in a recent video by running Mac OS 9 on a Nintendo’s legendary console. The first major issue is what anyone who has ever tried to put a Hackintosh together knows: just because a target system runs the same CPU architecture can you necessarily install Mac OS (or OS X) for Intel x86 on any Intel x86 system. The same is true for the Wii with its PowerPC CPU and running Mac OS 9 for PowerPC on it.

In order to make this work, a workaround is employed, which uses the fossilized Mac-on-Linux project to run PowerPC Mac OS essentially on Linux for the Wii. This is a kernel module which allows Mac OS to run at basically native speeds on Linux, but it being a Linux kernel module, it meant that [Michael] had to hunt down the correct kernel to go with it. After creating an SD card with a functioning bootloader, he was able to boot into Wii Linux with MoL enabled, and try to install Mac OS.

OS X didn’t work for some reason, but Mac OS 9 did work, albeit with severe font rendering and audio glitches. All of which seems to come down to that while it is possible to get Mac OS running on the Wii, doing so is definitely more for the challenge and experience. By the way, if all this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because [Michael] referenced the Mac-on-Wii work that [Dandu] did last year to make this latest iteration happen.

Continue reading “How To Install Mac OS On The Nintendo Wii” →

Hackaday Links Column Banner

Hackaday Links: April 9, 2023

April 9, 2023 by 17 Comments

When it comes to cryptocurrency security, what’s the best way to secure the private key? Obviously, the correct answer is to write it on a sticky note and put it on the bezel of your monitor; nobody’ll ever think of looking there. But, if you’re slightly more paranoid, and you have access to a Falcon 9, you might just choose to send it to the Moon. That’s what is supposed to happen in a few months’ time, as private firm Lunar Outpost’s MAPP, or Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, heads to the Moon. The goal is to etch the private key of a wallet, cheekily named “Nakamoto_1,” on the rover and fund it with 62 Bitcoins, worth about $1.5 million now. The wallet will be funded by an NFT sale of space-themed electronic art, because apparently the project didn’t have enough Web3.0 buzzwords yet. So whoever visits the lunar rover first gets to claim the contents of the wallet, whatever they happen to be worth at the time. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a human who visits.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: April 9, 2023” →

SheepShaver: A Cross-Platform Tool For Retro Enthusiasts

March 24, 2023 by 20 Comments

The world of desktop computing has coalesced into what is essentially a duopoly, with Windows machines making up the bulk of the market share and Apple carving out a dedicated minority. This relatively stable state hasn’t always existed, though, as the computing scene even as late as the 90s was awash with all kinds of competing operating systems and various incompatible hardware. Amiga, Unix, OS/2, MacOS, NeXT, BeOS, as well as competing DOSes, were all on the table at various points.

If you’ve still got a box running one of these retro systems, SheepShaver might be able to help expand your software library. It’s not the sort of virtualization that we’re used to in the modern world, with an entire operating system running on a sanctioned-off part of your system. But SheepShaver does allow you to run software written for MacOS 7.5.2 thru 9.0.4 in a different environment. Unix and Linux are both supported, as well as Mac OS X, Windows NT, 2000, and XP, and the enigmatic BeOS. Certain configurations allow applications to run natively without any emulation at all, and there is plenty of hardware support built-in as well.

For anyone running retro hardware from the late 90s or early 00s, this could be just the ticket to get an application running that wasn’t ever supported on one of these machines. As for the name, it’s a play on another piece of software called ShapeShifter which brought a Mac-II emulator to the Amiga. SheepShaver has been around since the late 90s, too, so we’re surprised that we haven’t featured it before since it is such a powerful tool for cross-platform compatibility for computers of this era. Even if all you are hanging on to is an old BeBox.

It’s MacOS. On An Unmodified Wii!

November 24, 2022 by 16 Comments

We’re used to the so-called “Hackintoshes”, non-Apple hardware running MacOS. One we featured recently was even built into the case of a Nintendo Wii. But [Dandu] has gone one better than that, by running MacOS on an unmodified Wii, original Nintendo hardware (French, Google Translate link).

How has this seemingly impossible task been achieved? Seasoned Mac enthusiasts will remember the days when Apple machines used PowerPC processors, and the Wii uses a PowerPC chip that’s a close cousin of those used in the Mac G3 series of computers. Since the Wii can run a Linux-based OS, it can therefore run Mac-on-Linux, providing in theory an environment in which it can host one of the PowerPC versions of MacOS.

The installation sequence has more than its share of difficulties, but eventually he was able to get the Wii running MacOS 9, the last classic MacOS. It runs DOOM, Internet Explorer 5, and iTunes even on these limited resources, though the last package had display and sound issues. He then tries a MacOS X build, but without success.

It’s fair to say that this is not exactly a way to get your hands on a cheap Mac, and remains more of an exercise in pushing a console beyond its original function. But it’s still an interesting diversion, and maybe someone will in time make a MacOS X version work on the Wii too. If you’re curious about the Mac-in-a-Wii that inspired this work, you can see it here.

Change Desktop Environments On… IOS?

November 19, 2021 by 32 Comments

While Apple’s modern operating systems may seem like they exist independently of the rest of the computing world, they are actually close cousins of modern versions of Linux. The primary link between the two is that Apple’s offerings are Unix-based and even though Linux isn’t Unix in the strict sense, it’s built to be extremely Unix-like. Plenty of Linux software is POSIX-compliant, meaning it is effectively compatible with true Unix. But what can we do with that information? Well, to start, we can run Linux desktop environments on top of an iOS install on your favorite iPhone or iPad.

To be sure, we will be filing this hack in the “because you can” category. [Torrekie], the creator of this project, has plenty of builds (Google translate from Chinese) where the boundaries between things like Linux and Unix are either blurred or nonexistant. In this particular project, a jailbroken iOS device is essentially gifted a ported version of XFCE which is able to run fairly well on iOS thanks to its compatibility with Unix environments. Details on how this was accomplished are sparse without a full investigation of the source code right now, but you can head over to the repository if you are curious enough to try this for yourself. [Torrekie] does note that this will only work with iOS devices that have been jailbroken using the “unc0ver” jailbreak only though.

To be sure, the relationship between modern Apple operating systems and Linux is about as close as modern Porsches and the Volkswagen Beetle, but either way the two are close enough to get interesting and impressive mashups like this project. For now only time will tell if using XFCE on iOS will be useful for anyone, but other projects bridging the gap between Linux and Apple are sure to be more immediately fruitful.