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Has anyone managed to install OS X Guest in VirtualBox under Ubuntu? I've wasted 3 days trying to accomplish this by following various tutorials around the Web, but none seem to work for me.

Can anyone share some experience, or an updated tutorial link for this? For the record, I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 on Acer AS5830TG.

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  • I think I've read that this isn't allowed by OS X's license agreement, but I'm not sure.
    – iBelieve
    Jun 3, 2013 at 21:51
  • 4
    It isn't allowed, since all medium that Apple release are "upgrade" discs... they do not give you a full install. Despite this, the disc does allow you to do a full install. However the marketing words, along with their EULA, state that the disc should only ever be used to Upgrade an existing install, or to recover from a corrupted one.
    – hazrpg
    Jun 4, 2013 at 0:01
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    unless you're running linux on mac hardware, then hosting an OS X guest is...ok? And of course we are, right? :)
    – rogerdpack
    May 20, 2014 at 16:06
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    Yeah, the guest is clearly Ubuntu running on Apple hardware. No soul here would dream of violating Apple's EULA. @rogerdpack
    – Fiksdal
    Oct 13, 2016 at 20:37
  • 1
    I meant "the host here", not guest.
    – Fiksdal
    Oct 14, 2016 at 10:47

3 Answers 3

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I will warn you that I do not condone this, so please don't try it. However, for educational purposes, it is possible to install OSX in VirtualBox... you need a Hackintosh install disc to do this though. For information on this, have a look here: Lifehacker "How to Run Mac OS X Inside Windows Using VirtualBox". Ignore the fact that they are using VirtualBox in Windows, because the same process will work in Ubuntu too.

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  • Thanks hazrpg, that's one of the tutorials that I've tried following, but it doesn't work. OS X installation hangs at 4min before finish, no error message, no nothing. Jun 4, 2013 at 5:53
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    I'll accept this answer because although it wasn't working for me, I finally made it. The problem was the OS X installation was hanging at 4min before the end. The solution is one or more of the following: Disable Audio on your Virtual Machine, increase Hard disk size to at least 40GB, increase RAM to at least 2048MB. Jun 5, 2013 at 8:44
  • To those who were stuck at the 4minute thing, just reboot it and don't use CD/DVD rom. I'm using this now on my VirtualBox.
    – Papapau
    Oct 25, 2013 at 7:00
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http://www.sysprobs.com/install-mac-snow-leopard-1063-oracle-virtualbox-32-apple-intel-pc Should work on ubuntu as well, give it a try

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  • CinnamonMate thank you, I'll give this a try and let you know the results. Jun 4, 2013 at 5:56
  • in case you do not have a install disc, google MC573Z and buy it from apple's site Jun 5, 2013 at 6:24
0

I have done the same thing and found out that OSX is very hardware specific. So to get the OSX to work you need to adjust the OSX to understand the hosts hardware emulation. You will be able to get it up and running so that the ethernet works and the screen and the rest is very dodgy.

The other problem as that the OSX will not be update-able. As soon as you update the OSX the install will break. The process is a cat and mouse chase of ensuring your updates do not kill the emulators limited hardware.

You'd think that Apples decision to go down the Intel route would make it easier but it doesn't. In the end the emulation will be slow and any advantage that OSX brings will be lost.

There are premade versions that are sold by third party vendors to run on regular hardware but they too will suffer from the issues I have mentioned.

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  • Meer Borg thank you, all I need OS X for is just testing and debugging my web projects for iPhone and iPad. I can't seem to find an adequate emulation for Ubuntu, so I thought I'd giv OS X a try. Jun 4, 2013 at 5:55

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