Google Chrome is the solution that over 63% of the world turns to and with good reason. Mac users have distinguished taste and as such, expect high quality in their hardware and software products. Google Chrome delivers this to Mac users with its low CPU usage, reliability, and overall browsing experience. Install Ubuntu Linux First. To install the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, you will first need to get into the Chrome OS developer shell, Crosh. Press “ctrl + alt + t” on your Chromebook’s keyboard, which in turn opens Crosh in a new tab of your Chrome Browser.
If you dream of being able to install Mac OS X on a Chromebook it is time to open your eyes. Someone has done it.
In another case of “because why not?”, developer ‘Coolstar’ has managed to squeeze Mac OS X 10.9.1 ‘Mavericks’ on to his (upgraded) Acer C720 Chromebook.
Yes, natively.
yup, at the desktop of OS X 10.9.1… On a chromebook, lol pic.twitter.com/lYpqMzFOGG
— CoolStar (@coolstarorg) June 2, 2015
Installing OS X on hardware that is not sold by Apple is difficult but not super difficult.
An entire ‘hackintosh‘ community has grown up around the concept and is dedicated to providing the tools, custom drivers and kernel patches needed to run the OS on devices Apple would rather it didn’t.
For this Acer C720 Chromebook Coolstar says he needed to use a ‘custom coreboot and fake CPU via clover EFI’.
Mavericks doesn’t run smoothly on the notebook, neither figuratively or literally. A lack of graphics acceleration means Safari is “sluggish”. Many of the core interface animations and workflows will also be affected.
Is this real?
I know what some of you may be thinking: that this isn’t real. It must be Mac OS X 10.9 running in a virtual machine, right?
Maybe. But given the developer behind this effort that is highly unlikely.
Coolstar is not an unknown. He has form for tinkering, fudging and hacking, from iOS to Chrome OS.
Last month he detailed his on-going effort to get Windows 8.1 running on this exact same Chromebook — even going as far as to port Linux drivers to Windows by hand.
Now that’s dedication!
The question of whether the effort it takes to install alternative OSes on a Chromebook, often with wildly varying degrees of success, is worth it.
But I think that question misses the core point of why people like Coolstar do this. They do it because they can.
Do you ever come across some crazy ideas? Well, this is certainly one of them. Running Mac OS on Chromebook is a lot easier than you think. Now keep in mind, you aren’t going to be able to do anything intensive on this. This is more a proof concept (like a lot of things that I do) and something just to admire.
To do this, we are going to be doing some very convoluted emulation. Essentially, we are going to be running Mac OS via Virtual Box on Linux. So first, make sure that you have Linux installed on your Chromebook. Also, you’re going to need to have a Mac OS ISO file. Here’s how to run Mac OS on Chromebook:
What You Will Need:
- Mac OS ISO
- 10GB of Storage either on external USB or Chromebook
Step 1: Enable Virtual Box Addons in Chrome
The hardest part of this tutorial will be getting virtual box to function properly inside of Linux. Since this is all running from the Chrome OS kernel, there are some modifications that will need to be made for VirtualBox to load. Open up the shell and type in the following:
This will download a script that will disable module_locking so that the modules can be loaded from outside of Chrome OS.
Now, start up your Linux environment:
Open up terminal and type in the following:
This will download and execute a script that will install the Linux headers and image and also load the virtual box modules. For more information about the above scripts, refer to the github.You might need to reboot after this step.
Step 2: Download and Install Virtualbox
Now download VirtualBox for Linux. Choose to open it up with the Ubuntu Software center (apt-get install software-center if you don’t have it) to install it.
Step 3: Setting up the VM
Open up VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine.
Make sure that the amount of RAM that you allocate to the VM is less than 1 GB( or somewhere in the green area). Not leaving enough RAM for Chrome OS and Ubuntu will cause the VM to crash.
Next, create a new virtual disk image. The recommended size is 20GB. If yo don’t have enough space available on your Chromebook you can install the image to a USB flash drive. Just be aware that your read and write times will be slower.
Within the settings of your VM, uncheck the boxes Enable Efi and Hardware Clock.
Under display, allocate the maximum amount of video memory available.
Under Storage, add an optical drive and choose the location of your Mac OS iso file.
Finally, you’re ready to start the VM. Be patient, it might take a few minutes before you see the welcome screen.
Setting up the VM doesn’t need to be done in Ubuntu. You could do this on another PC, install Mac OS, then transfer the Virtual Disk Image to Ubuntu
Step 4: Installing Mac OS X
The installation process for Mac OS X is pretty straightforward. The only thing to take note of is setting up the virtual disk image. When you get to the installation screen, got to the toolbar and look for Disk Utilities.
Install Mac Os On Chromebook
Within Disk Utilities, select your virtual hard drive then go to erase. You can choose to give it a name, and make sure that the format is Mac OS Journaled.
Now, you should see it as an installation option once you exit disk utility. Install the OS to that drive.
After about 30 minutes, you should be all set. Reboot your VM (don’t forget to remove the Disk Image from the optical drive so that you don’t go back to the stup) and you should boot into Mac OS.
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