macOS Big Sur SSV and the future for KEXT and Hackintosh

[TardusMortem]

Hi Guys, 

 

Testing the new macOS Big Sur I have notice nobody on the YouTube or other streaming communities as talk about the SSV new feature and Data Protection available on the next release of Apple desktop system and what represents for the Future of Hackintoshers .

 

For the hackintosh community this article represents that the new macOS will count with a "Sign System Volume" protection on the core system and on the next Apple Silicon will count with also a some kind of "data protection" mechanism.

 

According the article, the new System Volume will be like a kind of snapshot of the original core and will accept only data ( code or not ) that has been signed by Apple. Not related to the Read-only volume available on Catalina that allowed to run sudo commands and have persistent code on it.

 

Thanks that Linus Media Group has one of the best hackintoshers I have ever seen on the Dark Side .

I will like to see if they can come with a hackintosh video testing this out. If there's persistent Kext support or will break existing hackintoshes on an update, etc, like also testing alternatives like OpenCore or Clover to check compatibility issues.

 

My source of the news:

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=3xpv8r2m

[Master Disaster]

I have a suspicion that Big Sur might be the last version of macOS where a hackintosh is possible at all. Once Apple transition everything to ARM there's no reason for them to keep any of the X86 code in the kernel.

[TardusMortem]

Exactly. 

The say they will support it for "years to come". 

But since they are making all this changes and creating more ways to have the transition to their own Silicon smoothly. 
I see that maybe Rosetta 2 technology or this other translation layers will be there to convert X86 code into their ARM equivalents managed by Apple own translation.

So native assembling code for X86 could be also managed directly by this layers, given developers no choice to add custom algorithms on X86 and have a custom to Apple Silicon without need to translate the app with this technologies. 

For the moment there's no updates on the Kernel code available publicly at https://opensource.apple.com 

But once it's there could be amazing to check how much actually they have change at a core level.

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Once Apple transition everything to ARM there's no reason for them to keep any of the X86 code in the kernel.

If we’re taking Apple’s word for it, it’s possible that x86 support will last beyond Big Sur although that’s still subject to change. But looking at their past OS roadmap, it’s possible that support for existing Intel Macs might not last for long.

• 2005: announcement of Intel transition 
• 2006: launched OS X Tiger for Intel (software updates lasted until September 2009) 
• 2007: launched Mac OS X Leopard which natively supports both PowerPC and Intel (software update lasted until June 2011) 
• 2009: launched Mac OS X Snow Leopard which only supports Intel based Macs, Rosetta 1 is an optional software update 

Sure Apple will still release Intel based Macs this year but that’s it. By 2021, they will only ship ARM based Macs and by 2022, it’s likely that even the Mac Pro will be transitioned to ARM. But with that said, it’s very likely that even macOS in 2021 will still support Intel so hackintosh is still possible.