"Rather pointless": User hacks macOS Sequoia on the Steam Deck
Valve's portable console runs on x86 technology. The latest Apple operating system has now been installed on it for the first time.
macOS on the Steam Deck: A nice experiment.
(Image: @whatdahopper / X)
macOS still runs on Intel technology, including the latest Sequoia operating system. This means that the hackintosh projects – that have become very popular in the meantime, i.e. the use of Apple OS on devices from other PC manufacturers –, are still possible. The hobbyist Kaitlyn, alias @whatdahopper, has now demonstrated a special kind of this on X: together with other fellow hackers, she managed to install macOS 15 on a Steam Deck.
No GPU acceleration, controller as modem
As is well known, this runs on the x86_64 architecture based on an AMD APU (Zen2). At first she only showed the configuration screen in recovery mode, later also the Finder. Kaitlyn openly admits that this modding is rather "pointless", as there is currently no GPU acceleration, among other things, which makes it rather unpleasant to use. In addition, the full Steam Deck resolution is not used and there are a number of oddities. These include the fact that macOS recognizes the Steam Deck controller as a "modem".
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At least the GPU acceleration could be retrofitted, however, as there is a suitable GPU core extension for AMD-RDNA2 in the form of NootRX (without any support, of course). Whether this will be integrated in the near future remains unclear. Until then, the work of Kaitlyn and co. remains just a proof of concept –, albeit a rather amusing one.
Actually well-suited hardware
There have been similar attempts before. Several years ago, a user was able to get macOS Catalina to run via VirtualBox –, again with massive limitations. macOS as a replacement for SteamOS is therefore not really useful. Whether this will ever be possible remains to be seen. However, the hardware of the Steam Deck is well suited for the operating system, say the hobbyists.
The reason you build a Hackintosh like this in the first place is "that you can do it", says Kaitlyn. In fact, it took a while before the opportunity arose again – macOS Catalina was released in 2019. Now the modders know how they can also boot Sequoia. However, even with a working Hackintosh, there are some problems – for example, Apple blocks access to certain apps and locks out elements such as iCloud and Apple Account.
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