macOS on Linux

Table of Contents

Installations

There are docker, script, and many other ways to run macOS on Linux. But I found the quickemu to be the easiest and fastest way to run macOS on Linux.

The latest version of macOS that I could get to work is sequoia. To get the sequoia version, you can use the following command:

quickget macos sequoia

Then just run the .conf file created by the above command:

quickemu --vm macos-sequoia.conf

  1. Choose the macOS Base System using the keyboard arrow keys and press Enter. (Note: The mouse doesn’t work in this menu.)

  2. Choose the Disk Utility and press Continue.

  3. Find the large disk (size ~100 GB) and erase it. The name of the drive might be Apple Inc. VirtIO Block Device.

  4. In the Erase dialog, choose the following options:

    • Name: Apple VirtIO Block (or any name you like)
    • Format: APFS
    • Scheme: GUID Partition Map

  5. Click Erase and then Done. And then close the Disk Utility.

  1. Choose Reinstall macOS and click Continue.

  1. Choose the Apple VirtIO Block (or the name you gave) and click Install.

  2. Wait for the installation to complete. (In VirtIO block, it can take up to 15 hours, and in bare metal, it can take up to 15 minutes.)

  3. On the first reboot, choose macOS Installer.

  4. On the second reboot, choose Apple VirtIO Block (or the name you gave).

Post-Installation

Optimize macOS

Source: osx-optimizer

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow autoLoginUser -bool true
mdutil -i off -a
nvram boot-args="serverperfmode=1 $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture ""
defaults write com.apple.Accessibility DifferentiateWithoutColor -int 1
defaults write com.apple.Accessibility ReduceMotionEnabled -int 1
defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceMotion -int 1
defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -int 1
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate AutomaticDownload -bool false
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate AutomaticCheckEnabled -bool false
defaults write com.apple.commerce AutoUpdate -bool false
defaults write com.apple.commerce AutoUpdateRestartRequired -bool false
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate ConfigDataInstall -int 0
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CriticalUpdateInstall -int 0
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate ScheduleFrequency -int 0
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate AutomaticDownload -int 0
defaults write com.apple.loginwindow DisableScreenLock -bool true
defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState -bool false
# Not tested
defaults write NSGlobalDomain
defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false
# Not tested
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.1
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0

Enable TRIM

sudo trimforce enable

Install brew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Change resolution

WARNING: Never change the resolution using macOS system settings. It breaks in my experience. In my case, I was using the Display: SDL, VGA, GL (on), VirGL (off) @ (1280 x 800) option in QEMU. And after changing the resolution, the bottom 70% of the screen was black.

Source: macOS-Simple-KVM

NOTE: Skip step 1 to 3 if the resolutions already exist in BIOS.

  1. In the macOS Finder, look for EFI in the left bar under Volumes. If it isn’t visible you will have to mount it:
    • Open the macOS Terminal and type diskutil list and look for the disk/partition location of the EFI. (There may be more than one.)
    • Type sudo diskutil mount diskYsZ, using the disk/partition location name where you see EFI. Most likely it will be disk1s1. The one next to Linux Filesystem not Apple_APFS.
    • The EFI partition will appear in the left Finder bar under Volumes.
    • If you don’t see anything in that volume after browsing to it, try the other ones that you found in diskutil.
  2. In the EFI volume, go into the OC directory and open the config.plist file in the macOS text editor.
  3. There should be a section of the file that looks like this:
<key>ScreenResolution</key>
<string>1280x720</string>
  • Edit that to your preferred screen resolution.
  • Some odd/intermediate resolutions like 1366×768 may not work well. Try to stick to more common 16:9, 16:10, and 4:3 form factors.
  1. Shut down the VM, relaunch it.
    • Press Escape key as soon as the window comes up.
    • In the interface that comes up, select Device Manager->OVMF Platform Configuration->Change Preferred and select the correct resolution.
    • Press F10 to save the changes.
    • Press Escape multiple times to come back to main menu, and then select Continue on it.

Install useful software