Nano will allow us to quickly make modifications to the build script used to run the macOS installation. Ready? To get started, we’re going to install the very useful text editor, nano. That said, you will want to make a backup of your existing Linux container if there’s anything you don’t wish to lose. If anything breaks, you can easily remove Linux and start from scratch. If you want to install macOS on your Chromebook just to say you did or maybe impress your friends, I’m going to show you exactly how to do it. If you’re looking for a legitimate macOS experience, this isn’t the tutorial you’re looking for.

The experience is pretty choppy even on my Core i7 ASUS that’s equipped with 16GB of RAM. Before we go any further, I will warn you that I do not recommend doing this unless you just like to tinker. The process is actually quite simple and takes only a few lines of code in the in-built Linux terminal that comes with most modern Chromebooks. Can you install macOS in some shape, form, or fashion using Linux? Turns out, the answer is yes and one sharp developer has a Github repo dedicated to this very task. That said, I was sitting at my desk the other day when a crazy thought popped into my head.

For me, it’s mostly a matter of trying for the sake of trying. I know I’m an outlier and I know that most users have zero desire to install non-native software on a Chromebook and that’s totally okay. While it didn’t require Linux, we even figured out how to use iMessage on a Chromebook simply because we could. Over the past couple of years, I’ve installed a wide variety of Linux applications, desktop environments, various Linux distros, and even a full-blown Windows installation.

Why? Why not? Since Google was kind enough to add a Linux container to ChromeOS, I feel it is my duty to tinker as much as I can to see just how far I can push our favorite operating system. Another day, another opportunity for me to do something absolutely irrational with my Chromebook.

Install chrome os on mac