GUIDE : HOW TO RUN THE HACKINTOSH INSTALLER ON A LAPTOP PC This installer uses internally the debian linux operating system, the opencore bootloader and the dortania hackintosh software, which is available online. WHICH IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD There are 3 different versions of this hackintosh software: a minimal installer,a graphical installer and a macos prebuilt image which also includes the graphical installer. 1) The minimal installer (codename HACKVER) has the smallest image size, but does not easily allow editing of the macos configuration unless you are an expert linux user. 2) The graphical installer (codename HACKMID) has a image size in between the minimal and the prebuilt, and allows connecting to the internet, running a web browser and editing the macos configuration if necessary. 3) the prebuilt macos image (codename MACMID) has the largest size, because it already includes a fully installed macos almost ready to run out of the box on a machine with a hardware matching one of the configuration files included in the image; it also includes the graphical linux desktop used in the graphical installer. SOME HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE INSTALLING Before you start the macos installation these are the main features of the PC hardware that was used for these macos installer configurations. (always refer to the dortania guide for details on how to change the configuration for different hardware) CPU : INTEL 6TH-8TH GENERATION MOBILE CPU RAM MEMORY: at least 6GB, ideally 8GB STORAGE : used only SSD disk drives, NOT HDD ; (see note below about unsupported nvme SSD models for macos) WIRELESS : intel wireless card GPU : intel integrated graphics NOTES ABOUT USING SAME DISK FOR HACKINTOSH INSTALLER AND MACOS You need to have a computer (I will call this the "source PC" in this manual ) with Microsoft Windows or linux already installed and connected to the internet to be able to download the hackintosh installer from the cloud and copy it to a different drive. The PC you want to install macos on (the target PC) using the minimal installer, is typically a different machine, since the minimal installer erases completely the drive in the target PC where to install macos; currently this type of installer does not support adding another partition to a disk with existing partitions to create a multiboot setup on the same disk. Obviously if you already have multiple physical drives in the same computer, you can use the same machine to boot from the drive containing windows or linux to download the hackintosh installer, then boot from the drive you created and finally selecting a third empty target drive (see also note below about installing macos on an external USB drive); in this case the source PC would be the same as the target PC. Alternatively the graphical installer allows installation of macos on the same disk you copied the image on, by extending the partition table to use all the physical disk space and using the macos recovery to create an apfs volume in the free space. For some parts of this manual the steps are different depending on your operating system: for those steps follow the correct paragraph (LINUX or WINDOWS) The Microsoft windows scripts were tested on a windows 11 installation. They may work also on some later windows 10 versions, but I did not test it. The Linux scripts were tested on a DEBIAN BOOKWORM lxqt desktop installation. They may work also on other linux distributions , but the linux system needs to have a recent bash shell and unzip,dd,parted,xz,lsblk,[u]mount,file,sgdisk executables already installed for use from the command line and also sudo for root access. DOWNLOADING ALL NECESSARY FILES FROM THE CLOUD SERVER TO A WORK FOLDER Open a web browser and navigate to the website grpcchar.ddns.net NOTES ABOUT BROWSER SECURITY WARNINGS a) self signed ssl certificate: if you are using https the web browser will give a warning like : "Your connection is not private" or "Potential Security Risk Ahead", then you must click advanced, accept the risk and continue. b) unknown publisher download files: if a popup appears with "insecure file blocked" Always select "keep" to confirm download. NOTE ABOUT CHANGING WORK FOLDER You can choose any other folder to work in if you wish,as long as all the required files are in the same folder,this will be your work_folder. NOTE: typically the is your Downloads folder and this is the one we will use for this manual. You must have enough disk space in the Downloads folder for both the compressed image file and the fully uncompressed image file. CHANGING DIRECTORY TO THE WORK FOLDER IN LINUX open a terminal (I will assume you have a bash shell throughout this manual) and run the command: cd ~/Downloads OPENING THE WORK FOLDER IN MSWINDOWS Open your Downloads folder in windows file manager INSTALLER DOWNLOAD OPTIONS NOTES ABOUT TARGET DRIVE HOTPLUG If the downloader does not detect the first time the drive you want to copy the image to,you may have to remove and replug it right before restarting the downloader. 1) AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADER (RECOMMENDED) In your web browser download the downloader file for the the desired installer type by clicking on the "downloader" link with the corresponding installer name. The downloader name will have the codename of the installer followed by the macos version and an extension that depends on the operating system (.exe for MSwindows or .bin for Linux). I will use "macmid_sonoma_14_5" as the downloader example for this manual. The downloader will perform all the steps automatically except the selection of the target drive which you have to select from a list. VERY IMPORTANT !: it is critical to select the correct target drive to avoid erasing the wrong drive. RUNNING THE DOWNLOADER SCRIPT IN LINUX open a bash terminal and run these commands : chmod +x macmid_sonoma_14_5.bin;./macmid_sonoma_14_5.bin RUNNING THE DOWNLOADER SCRIPT IN MSWINDOWS in file manager click to execute the macmid_sonoma_14_5.exe file and when the insecure file popup appears, click on more info and run anyway. When the installer asks to make changes to this computer click on yes. 2) MANUAL METHOD In the webpage under Tools click on the "unzip" link to download the archive extractor In the webpage under Tools click on "hackintosh installer Tools" to download the tools. In the webpage under Images click on the image of the desired installer type to download it. Since the image is a very large file, you may have to resume the download a few times if a popup appears with "network failure" or "check internet connection", so I recommend leaving the download window open with progress status and check it from time to time. EXTRACTING THE TOOLS IN WINDOWS Open a command prompt window as administrator by typing "cmd" in the windows search bar and clicking on the right side on "run as administrator". Inside the command prompt execute the following commands: cd %homedrive%%homepath%\Downloads unzip hackinst_tools_win EXTRACTING THE TOOLS IN LINUX in the bash terminal run this command: chmod +x unzip_lnx.bin;./unzip_lnx.bin hackinst_tools_lnx.zip DECOMPRESSING THE IMAGE FILE IN MSWINDOWS xz -v -T0 -d -k -f sonoma_14_5.img.xz NOTE: decompressing the large image file will take a while. DECOMPRESSING THE IMAGE FILE IN LINUX ./xz_lnx.bin -v -T0 -d -k -f sonoma_14_5.img.xz NOTE: decompressing the large image file may take a while. COPYING THE HACKINTOSH IMAGE TO A DISK Make sure the disk where to copy the image file is in your source PC. COPYING THE HACKINTOSH IMAGE TO A DISK IN LINUX NOTE: the imgwrite program requires the logical sector size to be the same on source and target disk. In your bash terminal execute the following command : sudo ./imgwrite_lnx.bin sonoma_14_5.img (it will ask you for your user password to execute some scripts as root) The program will list all the available disks. Choose the disk where you can copy the image to: VERY IMPORTANT !: make sure to type the correct disk number to avoid erasing the wrong disk. Wait until the program copies the image to the desired disk,this may take some time depending on your hardware. You can now turn off the source PC (and once the source PC has completely shut down, unplug the hackintosh disk if installing macos on a different target PC). COPYING THE HACKINTOSH IMAGE TO A DISK IN MSWINDOWS NOTE: the imgwrite program requires the logical sector size to be the same on source and target disk. in the command prompt window type this command imgwrite_win sonoma_14_5.img the program will list all the available disks, their size and whether they are hotplug . type the correct number for the disk you have to use: VERY IMPORTANT !: make sure to write the correct disk number to avoid erasing the wrong disk. Wait until the program copies the image to the desired disk,this may take a while depending on your hardware. You can now turn off the source PC (and once the source PC has completely shut down,unplug the hackintosh disk if installing macos on a different target PC). USING THE MINIMAL HACKINTOSH INSTALLER If the target PC is not the same as the source PC, take the target PC where you want to install macos and plug into it the disk where you copied the hackintosh installer NOTE: to boot from a usb disk drive usually there is a boot menu you can bring up at powerup pressing a certain key (used to be F9 for some old HP and F12 for old dells,but you can check the correct key for your machine type on google) and select the disk you want to boot from,which is the hackintosh installer disk . Wait until the system starts and it will guide you with a black text window on how to transfer the hackintosh setup on your . First it will ask you to choose the machine configuration you want to use. NOTE: if your target PC model is not listed in the available configurations, try to choose the one with the same cpu family,but you may have to tweak the config.plist to have it to boot and install, always refer to the dortania guide. for example : 0 hp_probook_640_g4 Next the program will list all the available disks, their size and whether they are hotplug. for example: sdc 3.6T 1 Backup+ Desk Seagate Choose the disk where you want to copy the macos installer to (typically this disk will be your internal SSD disk if there are no other drives,see note below in case you want to install macos on an external usb drive). VERY IMPORTANT !: make sure to type the whole disk label correctly (example type sdc) to avoid erasing the wrong disk Confirm erasing . Wait until the program copies the image to the desired disk,this may take a little time depending on your hardware. After successful execution the program will prompt to shutdown the machine. After the machine has completely shut down make sure to unplug the hackintosh installer disk from the target PC. USING THE GRAPHICAL MACOS INSTALLER OR THE PREBUILT MACOS IMAGE NOTE: BOOTLOADER TIMEOUT Every time you reboot the PC and grub or opencore bootloader starts, if you do not change the highlighted selection by moving the keyboard up/down arrows within a few seconds,it will load the highlighted selection by default,which may not be the one you want, so be ready to press the up or down arrow on the keyboard at least once to stop the automated timed boot. NOTE: to boot from a usb disk drive usually there is a boot menu you can bring up at powerup pressing a certain key (used to be F9 for some old HP and F12 for old dells,but you can check the correct key for your machine type on google) and select the disk you want to boot from,which is the hackintosh installer disk . RUNNING THE GRAPHICAL LINUX DESKTOP When the grub boot menu appears press the down arrow on the keyboard to select debian linux then press enter: wait until the system starts and it will load the graphical linux desktop. There are some icons on the desktop to run the tools to setup and edit the hackintosh configuration. REQUIRED STEPS TO SETUP CONFIGURATION ON MATCHING HARDWARE. SELECT MACOS CONFIGURATION PLIST FILE click on "selcfgmac" desktop icon to choose the machine configuration you want to use. NOTE: if your target PC model is not listed in the available configurations, try to choose the one with the same cpu family,but you may have to tweak the config.plist, download additional ACPI prebuilt files or Kexts kernel modules to the hackintosh EFI/OC folder to have it to boot and install, always refer to the dortania guide (see paragraph below).This is for advanced users. EXTEND INSTALLER DISK PARTITION TABLE Although you may be able install,transfer or use the macos image with its current size as is, it is recommended to extend the original image size to the size of the disk you copied it on to use all the available space on the physical disk. To do this click on "dskextend" desktop icon which will show the current disk information and confirm. For the non-prebuilt images the script must also add a extra partition (with macos extended format) for macos to be able to recognize the partition to install on . The script will ask you for the size. I recommend at least 30GB as a bare minimum, 50GB for everyday use. TRANSFERRING IMAGE TO ANOTHER DISK NOTE: this method requires the logical sector size to be the same on source and target disk. This can be useful for example when using the same external disk with the graphical installer image and plugging it in on multiple computers to install on their internal drives. Click on "xfrcurdsk" desktop icon which will prompt for a disk to choose to copy the current whole disk you booted from. This may take a while,you must wait until the script completes. OPTIONAL STEPS IF SETTING UP MAC CONFIGURATION FOR A NEW HARDWARE (ADVANCED) -If you need to make changes to the config.plist click on "cfgplist" desktop icon and it will run the propertree tool to edit the file. -if you want to display the hardware information for your PC click on the desktop icon called "showhware". This hopefully provides most of the information necessary to setup a configuration for a new hardware following the dortania guide. -if you need to generate a new smbios to include in the config.plist click on the desktop icon called "gensmbmac". NOTE: you must first connect to the internet to be able to use this tool. It will open a terminal with some options,the first time you run the installer, you must download the macserial database, then you can use the option to generate the smbios by entering the desired mac machine name. -if at any moment you needed to connect to the internet there is a small icon to connect to wifi on the bottom right hand corner of the linux desktop which should work on most hardware out of the box. click on the icon, select the wifi and enter the wifi password. (if the computer is wired to a router through ethernet it should aready be connected automatically when booting the linux) -there is also a browser desktop icon in case you need to look up or download any information from the internet. NOTE: the linux installation as is does not have a large amount of free disk space,since it is really meant to use just as an installer for macos. Finally reboot the target PC by clicking on the red power button on the lower right hand corner of the linux desktop and selecting reboot. Wait until the PC reboots then reboot from the same drive you ran the linux desktop on. When the grub boot menu appears by default "MACOS" is selected and wait and it will start the opencore bootloader:this will have multiple selections and the one you must select depend if you are using the graphical installer alone or the graphical installer with the prebuilt macos image, which are described below. STARTING THE MACOS RECOVERY you will need to select the "dmg" entry using the up/down arrows keys on the keyboard (it usually has a name starting with EFI then a codename that depends on the type of installer example EFIHACKMID (dmg)) then press enter.Wait for the macos recovery to start then follow the procedure outlined in the "running the macos recovery" paragraph STARTING THE MACOS PREBUILT IMAGE OPTIONAL: EXTENDING MACOS TO USE ALL DISK SPACE IMPORTANT: before running this step you must have completed the step above "EXTEND INSTALLER DISK PARTITION TABLE". The procedure below must be done one time only (before booting macos the first time): you will need to select the "dmg" entry to run the macos recovery using the up/down arrows keys on the keyboard (it usually has a name starting with EFI then a codename that depends on the type of installer example EFIHACKMID (dmg)) then press enter.Wait for the macos recovery to start, then open disk utility and select the physical disk containing the volume called MLTUSBMAC. Click on the partition button and in the round pie chart that shows all the disk partitions,click inside the "free space" section to select it.Then click on the "-" sign below to remove the free space and apply changes: this will extend the macos apfs partition to use the whole disk space which is something you probably want most of the times. Wait until it successfully completes, then quit disk utility and click on restart from the top left apple menu. BOOTING MACOS Everytime you boot macos, make sure to boot the target PC from the prebuilt image disk and when the grub boot menu appears by default "MACOS" is selected and wait and it will start the opencore bootloader. Now you will need to select the macos apfs partition MLTUSBMAC entry using the up/down arrows keys on the keyboard, then press enter and wait for macos to start. (after you boot it the first time usually the opencore menu should remember it, if not just hold the CTRL key while pressing enter so opencore will remember the entry you booted the following times) NOTE ABOUT INSTALLING MACOS ON A USB DISK The could potentially be a usb connected external drive, I was actually able to install macos on a sata 2.5" ssd connected to the target PC usb port through a sata to usb 3.0 adapter cable with the following caveats: -during EVERY phase of macos recovery when it restarts,you have to boot the target PC selecting the usb drive ( keep in mind that usually the UEFI boot order by default puts the internal disk first, unless you change the boot order in bios). -usb 3.0 i/o speed is not quite as fast as an internal sata i/o;moreover if you have to disable the usb 3.0 controller to avoid usb mapping hanging issues, it will further lower the speed to usb 2.0 speeds. -you can try to use a nvme SSD to USB>4.0/thunderbolt adapter which should have much faster i/o; I have not tested the setup with that one yet, but it still would be susceptible to the usb mapping hanging issues. TARGET PC BIOS SETUP For a full set of required bios settings refer to the dortania guide online. Depending on the machine you want to install macos on, you typically enter the bios setup pressing a key as soon as you power up the target PC (for many old HP it used to be F10, for some old DELL F2,but you can look up the exact model of your target PC on google to make sure), BOOT MODE : DO NOT USE LEGACY ONLY Navigate the bios menus to the boot options and make sure boot mode is set to UEFI. Later you can switch to UEFI with compatibility mode (also known as CSM) only if there is a corrupt video issue during the hackintosh macos installation (see note below). DISABLE SECURE BOOT DISABLE QUICK/FAST BOOT (always select thorough boot to fully initialize all hardware at powerup) VIDEO MEMORY : 64MB Usually this may be in device settings or advanced depending on the bios menus;If the bios allows setting the initial video memory always allocate at least 64MB. RUNNING THE MACOS RECOVERY IMPORTANT: Unplug as many devices as possible from the target PC ports,including all usb external devices and any external screens. This can help avoid issues that can cause the boot process to hang;ideally just keep the ac power adapter plugged in the laptop and nothing else. During installation you can use the touchpad mouse and laptop keyboard for input ;after the installation is complete, you can then plug back an external device example usb mouse or keyboard. Boot from the (this should be by default your internal SSD disk if there are no other drives) it will bring up the black text opencore bootloader menu,you must choose the entry "EFIHACKMID (dmg)" (if not already selected),by using the keyboard up/down arrows and then press enter. Wait for macos recovery to load,that might take a little while. NOTE: If when the recovery graphic window starts the screen is corrupt (showing many duplicate icons broken in vertical lines and unreadable text) : restart the target PC, try enabling CSM in bios (UEFI with legacy compatibility boot) and rerun the macos recovery. Once recovery has started: CONNECT WIFI Connect the wifi, by clicking on the wifi signal icon on the upper right corner of the screen,selecting your wifi network,put the wifi password and click join. (if it does not connect the first time after a few seconds try turning off and on the wifi with the slider button and clicking again on your network name to connect, I have seen that sometimes the wifi driver might have trouble connecting, you may have to repeat this a few times ) DISABLE SCREEN TIMEOUT BLANKING DURING INSTALLATION (OPTIONAL) From the menu "utilities" run a macos terminal type in it the following commands pmset -a sleep 0 displaysleep 0 exit select "quit terminal" from the menu on top left of the screen. FORMAT MACOS DISK PARTITION Run "disk utility" and select your target drive volume that is formatted as macos extended,this should be of much larger size than the EFIHACKMID partition you booted from. Click on the erase button and reformat it with APFS case sensitive (NOT encrypted) and you can apply any label you like for your macos partition (example MLTUSBMAC) Once the partition has been successfully formatted to APFS, exit the disk utility by clicking on quit disk utility from the top left menu. START MACOS INSTALLATION Finally in the installer click on "reinstall macos ". Agree to the license. Select the MLTUSBMAC drive to install on and start installation,this will take a while. Hopefully the installation will complete; during the process the target PC will restart several times with a text phase (a lot of text lines written on a black screen), often followed by a graphical phase (where you will see the mouse pointer and a apple icon with a progress status bar on the screen) (every time it restarts it will bring up the same black text opencore menu which by default should have already selected the macos recovery entry,then it will eventually change to your actual partition label,e.g. MLTUSBMAC and if you don't touch the keyboard up/down arrows it will boot that entry automatically in few seconds ) Once the macos recovery installation completes and shows the macos welcome screen, create the macos user account, go through all the steps and wait until macos desktop appears. NOTES ABOUT INSTALLATION HANGING If the installation gets stuck at any time,I have seen it happen in the following situations: -wrong smbios in config.plist (typically brings up a "apple support" question mark error screen immediately after boot).Smbios is closely tied to the macos version. -macos version may be too new for older CPU families that are not supported in that version. -graphic card settings are not configured correctly (graphical screen does not start after finishing a text phase of the installation),for example bios allocated video memory is 32gb or gpu settings in config.plist are not right. -Using a nvme SSD that is not supported,for example some recent samsung nvme SSD. in that case change your ssd.(refer to dortania guide to check which SSD models that have issues,normally that would even hang while formatting as APFS or even get stuck any time during installation). -USB ports mapping issues, if possible try disabling the usb 3.0 controller (also known as xHCI) in bios (the hanging usually happens during the installation phases that are in the text mode); you can also try to enable the inject all usb kernel module in the config.plist. Moreover you can try to disable in bios any usb devices that you don't plan to use (e.g. card readers, fingerprint scanners, serial ports). -the installer loops and never proceeds to next step when the "SecureBootModel" parameter is "default" in config.plist , change it to "disabled". -macos online installers credentials are still controlled by apple to be able to download the full installer, which occurs during the first phase of the installation process. Once I had an instance in which a macos monterey installation refused to proceed with downloading using the online installer and got stuck with an error in the first phase of the installation. The full installer can be downloaded as a pkg file from inside another existing macos installation ,extracted to the applications folder, then it would have to be started from inside the new macos installer partition, by mounting the existing macos installation volume containing the full installer, cd into it and running the installer from a terminal, to do that you have to be familiar with mounting partitions and the bash command line which is out of the scope of this manual. EDITING THE MACOS CONFIGURATION FILE (ADVANCED) If you are familiar with linux,the bash command line and using text editing tools, and need to make any changes to the target PC macos configuration stored in the config.plist file,I recommend creating a drive with the graphical linux desktop installation , boot the target PC with the drive with the linux desktop, mount the EFIHACKMID partition of your target disk and run the propertree graphical tool; you can use the "cfgplist" desktop icon mentioned above to edit the config.plist located in the EFIHACKMID/EFI/OC/config.plist path.(this tool is already copied on your EFIHACKMID partition,together with some other essential tools I used to tweak the configuration like gensmbios). Follow the dortania guide to understand all the config.plist file parameters and syntax; If you are able to boot in your macos installation you can also run propertree from inside macos,but keep in mind that applying the wrong changes to config.plist could render macos unbootable and you would need to remove those changes and revert to the old config.plist file; therefore every time you want to make changes it is more practical to boot with a fast operating system (like a lightweight linux distribution,example debian lxqt or LUBUNTU) that can access the config.plist file to edit it, then restart the target PC booting with macos to test the effect of any changes. In general you can reuse the drive with the linux desktop to boot on any machine you work on. I found this to be very handy to test the target PC hardware, before going through the full macos installation, or even other tasks, like recover data from an existing broken MS windows installation. SOME HACKINTOSH POST INSTALL NOTES AND ISSUES USB MAPPING This process is fairly complex and can have pitfalls,refer to dortania website: Personally I was able to live without it and if I had issues of getting stuck during installation or some usb devices not recognized while running macos I enabled the inject all usb kernel module in the config plist,which seemed to be a acceptable workaround,although the recommended approach is still to map all the ports; in some instances where available, I had to disable the usb 3.0 controller in bios, if you can live with usb 2.0 speeds on the usb ports. Moreover you can try to disable in bios any usb devices that you don't plan to use (e.g. card readers, fingerprint scanners, serial ports). CMOS RTC ERRORS you would need to find the range of bad bios memory written by macos and mask it.it is a very tedious process ,so if you can live with the error just let it be and continue booting everytime you power up the machine. SUSPEND IS NOT SUPPORTED sleep/suspend is not functional out of the box in macos hackintosh and can potentially create data corruption;always shutdown system or leave fully powered on. You will need to disable automatic sleep (see below). WIFI DRIVER IPV6 SLOW SPEED If internet speed and file transfers are very slow: to turn off ipv6 on wifi,open a macos terminal and run this command: networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi HDMI NOT WORKING UNLESS HOTPLUGGED add igfxonln=1 to config.plist NVRAM boot arguments to force all screens to be enabled TESTED FUNCTIONALITY ON THE EXAMPLES CONFIG.PLIST Only very essential functionality was tested on the examples config.plist files I included: I tested built-in display,wifi,audio input/output,built-in keyboard,touchpad,external usb mouse,battery status monitoring. I was able to test VGA and hdmi output to work only on some models,but they did not work in some others, even if those had those ports in the hardware (you can try to hotplug an external display after macos has fully started, wait a few seconds and see if the system detects it; patching the gpu connectors in the config.plist is a very tedious trial and error process and outside of the scope of this manual, you can refer to the dortania guide if interested). Ethernet should work in most cases out of the box using the included intelmausi driver but I have not done extensive testing of that. Webcam should be supported in most cases, but with the usb port limit caveat, so if you have issues try the USB port limit workarounds I described above. No other devices like media cards readers,fingerprint sensors, serial ports,etc.. were ever tested. MACOS IMPORTANT SETTINGS AND PERFORMANCE TWEAKS Note that these tweaks should be already applied in the macos prebuilt image, but will be useful for a new installation. HIGH CPU AND HIGH DISK I/O ON STARTUP FOR SPOTLIGHT INDEXING go to system settings , spotlight privacy and add all partitions to exclude typically the MLTUSBMAC ,EFIHACKMID in our example DISABLE AUTOMATIC UPDATES go to system settings, software update disable check for updates disable download updates PREVENT AUTOMATIC SLEEP/SUSPEND go to system settings, display options check "Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off" REDUCE GRAPHICS ANIMATIONS TO SPEED UP VIDEO RENDERING (these are especially important when using a hackintosh installation with an unsupported gpu, which uses software video rendering) REDUCE MOTION AND TRANSPARENCY go to system settings,accessibility,display check reduce motion check reduce transparency REMOVE GENIE EFFECT go to system settings Dock & Menu Bar, "Minimize windows using", select scale instead of genie effect uncheck animate opening applications check minimize windows into application icons SPEED UP MISSION CONTROL go to system settings,Mission Control uncheck Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use uncheck Displays have separate spaces For a more thorough reduction you can open a macos terminal and write the following commands: ------------------------------------------------------------- # opening and closing windows and popovers defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false # smooth scrolling defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false # showing and hiding sheets, resizing preference windows, zooming windows # float 0 doesn't work defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001 # opening and closing Quick Look windows defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0 # rubberband scrolling (doesn't affect web views) defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false # resizing windows before and after showing the version browser # also disabled by NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001 defaults write -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation -bool false # showing a toolbar or menu bar in full screen defaults write -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration -float 0 # scrolling column views defaults write -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier -float 0 # showing the Dock defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0 # showing and hiding Mission Control, command+numbers defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0 # showing and hiding Launchpad defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0 defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0 # changing pages in Launchpad defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0 # at least AnimateInfoPanes defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true # sending messages and opening windows for replies defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true #speed Mac OS dialog boxes defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime .001 ------------------------------------------------------------------ MACOS MATCH WINDOWS/LINUX KEYBOARD/MOUSE INPUT STYLE If you are a new macos user (coming from MS windows or linux),getting used to a different input style can be a challenge. MODIFIER KEY MAPPING You can refer to the apple support website to see how keys are mapped between apple and windows PC keyboard. The main difference is the location of the command key which is used to activate most menus and the clipboard (originally the macos command key is mapped to the windows key) To match keyboard functionality closer to a PC , simply swap the command and control keys: go to system settings and search for "keyboard modifier" options : NOTE: this needs to be repeated for each keyboard,so you can start selecting the internal keyboard, then if you plug in a external usb keyboard select that one and repeat the process. Swap control and command on the right side ot the mapping window (Note also that the "option" key in macos is usually mapped to the ALT key on a PC keyboard) MOUSE WHEEL DIRECTION By default the direction of the mouse wheel functionality in macos is opposite than windows/linux. go to system settings, Mouse uncheck scroll direction natural INSTALLER RATIONALE THE UNIVERSAL HACKINTOSH INSTALLER The main idea was to create a sort of "universal" installer with the following approach: a) define a superset of kernel Kexts drivers,acpi aml precompiled modules across all hardware platforms. b) Define a superset of bios settings as generic as possible. c) concentrate all the changes in the config.plist file and nowhere else d) reduce to the minimum the changes between different hardware configurations in the config.plist essentially limited to: -enable or disable kernels or acpi modules, just using the enabled flag, instead of adding or removing the whole corresponding xml section -update smbios for a given macos version -graphics settings for whatevergreen driver for a given cpu family to enable gpu support. -select correct audio codec using the nvram boot argument alcid . This config.plist layout makes comparing config.plist files much easier between different hardwares to track differences. e) find workarounds to avoid hardware dependent setups (example find an alternative workaround to avoid usb mapping) But There are many challenges that make a universal installer difficult to implement: - newer macos recovery versions/subversions may require a newer version of opencore and both are constantly evolving. -older cpu families may require individual hardware specific setup ,for example irq patching and patching to work around the lack of certain cpu instruction sets like avx2 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS THE UNIVERSAL PREBUILT MACOS IMAGE It is reasonably easy with a mainstream linux operating system to create a drive with a "universal" full linux system installation that includes all possible hardware drivers and that can boot on pretty much any machine. In fact the graphical installer image allows running a linux system that can run a simple script to select the correct config.plist to copy it to the EFIHACKMID/EFI/OC folder, then restart the machine and boot the full macos. Obviously the challenge is the file size of the full installation image for downloads from a cloud server ,especially for the macos prebuilt, which requires several GB, and the amount of bandwidth required for transferring these large files even after compression, which limits a single http server to a few simultaneous connections to achieve acceptable download times. Hence the advantage of a possible distribuited file downlading (e.g. torrent) approach, that allows multiple peers connections instead of relying on a http web server that usually limits the data bandwidth and trasfer speed and for a lot of images also might run into storage space availability issues. The challenge is building a torrent peer community to support the project.Currently my server being the only one to provide the files, so even setting up a torrent seed using privtracker.com as a tracker for a private torrent with 1 seeder only would have no advantage with respect to a single web server. LEGAL,CREDITS AND DISCLAIMER This software is provided "as is" and you use the software at your own risk. I make no warranties as to performance, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. This project is non-profit, for teaching and personal use and I do not own any rights to any of the published software. All credits for the opencore hackintosh installation guide go to dortania and its developers All credits for the opencore bootloader go to acidanthera and its developers All credits for the MACOS operating system go to Apple Inc. All credits for the LUBUNTU and DEBIAN Linux operating systems go to the Respective Communities All credits for each of the software tools referred to in this manual and utilized by this software go to the respective project owners and developers.