one8three

MacOS on a Chromebook

 
  • Mar 10, 2021

Dell Chromebook 13 7310 Hackintosh

Confirmed working on:

  • MacOS: Big Sur 11.6
  • MrChromebox coreboot: 4.14
  • OpenCore: 0.7.3

# Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a thorough guide or walkthrough. It is essentially a dump of files and notes to get MacOS working on a Dell Chromebook 13 7310. I will try to keep this updated as I update my Chromebook to future MacOS releases. It’s not guaranteed to work on your specific device. If it doesn’t, you likely need to make some sort of changes to the supplied config.plist. I do not know what those changes may be. I am not responsible for any damage done or data lost by attempting this.

Update 10/03/2021

Note: users updating from MrChromeBox firmware 4.12 or older should enable the emulated NVRAM logout hook

  • Updated for OpenCore 0.7.3
  • “Fixed” compatibility with MrChromeBox firmware > 4.12
    • Switch to emulated NVRAM as native NVRAM is now broken with MacOS and MrChromeBox firmware
  • Confirm compatibility with MacOS Big Sur 11.6
  • Recreated SSDT files to better match new firmware. Replacing the old ones with the new ones is recommended.

Requirements:

  • Core i3 or Core i5 processor
  • MrChromebox’s coreboot firmware 4.14
  • OpenCore 0.7.3
  • Minimum of a 32GB SSD
    • Minimum 64GB recommended
  • A compatible m.2 WiFi card
    • I can confirm the Dell DW1560 works in MacOS (with additional kexts), Windows, & Ubuntu
    • Other users have reported success with the BCM94360NG (has native MacOS support so no additional kexts required!)
    • Note: There is now an Intel wifi kext and the stock wireless card is listed as compatible. I don’t have experience with using this so it won’t be covered here.
      • https://github.com/OpenIntelWireless/itlwm
  • MacOS installer flash drive

Notes:

  • Keyboard backlight is controlled with left ctrl + alt + “comma” and “period” keys. There are 7 stages, including off
  • Most top row keys are mapped with the custom VoodooPS2Controller.kext
    • Back arrow key = Previous track
    • Forward arrow key = Next track
    • Refresh key = Play/Pause
    • Brightness down key = Brightness down
    • Brightness up key = Brightness up
    • Mute key = Mute
    • Volume down key = Volume down
    • Volume up key = Volume up
  • OpenCore is set to boot at 1280x1024 - booting at 1920x1080 causes the login screen to load up with extreme graphical glitches so don’t bother changing it

What’s Working:

  • Just about everything!

What’s Not Working:

  • Touchscreen - unlikely that this will ever work as there is no kext for it - fairly uncommon to have one on this device anyway
  • Most DRM does not work. This means no Apple TV shows, Hulu, Netflix (in Safari), Amazon Prime streaming, etc.
    • This isn’t specific to the Dell CB13. DRM simply does not work on an iGPU only Hackintosh

To Do:

  • ???

Before Getting Started

  • I strongly suggest becoming familiar with Hackintoshing before jumping into this. Know the downsides, shortcomings, and difficulties. Read through the dortania guide, poke around on r/hackintosh, have a look around InsanelyMac and TonyMacX86 (even though their tools aren’t used here, they still have a lot of useful information), and do some general web searches. Even if a lot of it doesn’t make sense, just reading through it and becoming familiar with terms will be helpful!
  • Updates to MacOS, OpenCore, or firmware may break your installation! The latest versions that I have confirmed to work will always be at the top of the this page.
  • Don’t let this section scare you off! Once MacOS is up and running on your system, it is very stable!

Basic Installation Steps

  • Install/update MrChromebox coreboot firmware if you haven’t already
  • Get the MAC address of your WiFi card - it should be printed on the WiFi card or you can get it from your current OS - you’ll need this later
  • Create a MacOS installer flash drive
    • A guide can be found here
  • Download OpenCore 0.7.3 and copy only the files shown in this screenshot to your flash drive, keeping the folder structure as seen in the image
  • Download all of the required files
    • Be sure to make any edits mentioned - particularly to config.plist and VoodooRMI.kext
  • Move the required files to their appropriate locations on your installer flash drive
    • Your EFI folder should look like this - make sure all of the files are there (leave out the 4 highlighted WiFi/Bluetooth kexts if you’re using a BCM94360NG or other natively supported wifi card)
  • Install your new WiFi card if you haven’t already
    • I had an odd issue of the Chromebook not booting after initially installing the new WiFi card. If this happens, disconnect the battery and WiFi card and try again.
  • Boot to your installer and install MacOS
  • Boot into MacOS using your installer flash drive and copy the EFI folder from you installer flash drive to the EFI partition of your internal SSD - you can mount the EFI partition with MountEFI
    • More info can be found here
  • Follow the post install steps below

Post-Install

If you want a full Hackintosh guide (not Chromebook specific), I suggest this one: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/ - most of the files in this repo were created using this guide so you won’t need to generate them yourself. Simply pull them from here as you go through the guide.

Required Files

OpenCore Config

Place config.plist in /EFI/OC/

  • config-base.plist
    • Use ProperTree to make the following edits to the config-base.plist file
    • If you are using a BCM94360NG for wifi:
      • Delete the following kext entries from the config:
        • AirportBrcmFixup.kext
        • AirPortBrcm4360_Injector.kext
        • BrcmBluetoothInjector.kext
        • BrcmFirmwareData.kext
        • BrcmPatchRAM3.kext
    • Follow the PlatformInfo portion of this guide to edit the config.plist
      • You can use GenSMBIOS to generate the SMBIOS info
      • Use a MacBookAir7,2 profile
      • In the config.plist, you need to fill in values for: SystemProductName, SystemSerialNumber, MLB, SystemUUID, and ROM
      • Use your MAC address without the colons for the ROM field (You did get your MAC address, right?)
    • Be sure to rename the config file to config.plist

OpenCore Drivers

These are included with the OpenCore download except for HfsPlus.efi. Place these in /EFI/OC/Drivers

  • AudioDxe.efi
  • HfsPlus.efi
  • OpenCanopy.efi
  • OpenRuntime.efi

SSDT files

Place these in /EFI/OC/ACPI

Required Kexts

Place these in /EFI/OC/Kexts

Kexts for Dell DW1560 wifi

Place these in /EFI/OC/Kexts

Credits & Sources (in no particular order and maybe missing some)

  • Apple
  • https://github.com/MrChromebox
  • https://github.com/acidanthera
  • https://github.com/alexandred
  • https://github.com/RehabMan
  • https://github.com/corpnewt
  • https://www.insanelymac.com/
  • https://www.tonymacx86.com/
  • https://reddit.com/r/hackintosh
  • https://reddit.com/r/chrultrabook
  • https://github.com/one8three/VoodooPS2-CB13/
  • https://dortania.github.io/vanilla-laptop-guide/
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