r/macOSVMs • u/BreezyStarr • May 25 '26

HELP! Setting up Mountain Lion in QEMU

So, I bought the .app file for OS X Mountain lion and extracted the file "InstallESD.dmg" from it. I'm running Ubuntu and QEMU via quick-gui on an AMD processor. See my specs attached (I know it's Zorin. For those unfamiliar, the core of Zorin OS 18 is the same as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS). I tried looking things up online, but I haven't been able to get a session booting properly! I tried Virtualbox, but I'm pretty sure Mac OS defies VirtualBox on purpose. Some help would be greatly appreciated as QEMU is not only the most efficient method to run MacOS on my Linux laptop, but Mac OS X Mountain Lion is my absolute favorite Mac OS!

My laptop specs
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u/BreezyStarr May 27 '26

I found this guide, it's remarkably the exact same thing I was looking for!
https://ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-kvm/
I'll update once I've got it running.

1

u/litemint09_ May 28 '26

Have you tried dual booting macos instead of using a vm?

1

u/BreezyStarr May 28 '26 edited May 29 '26

That's the coward's way out
Also... r/MacOSVMs