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goal

bog makes youtube video using hackmate.

hackmate automates the whole process of making a bootable opencore hackintosh usb. no manual config.plist editing, no hunting down kexts urself, no macrecovery commands, none of that.

works on linux, windows, and macos as the host os — doesn't matter what ur running it from.

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📢 announcements

latest update — went thru and fixed rocket lake getting mislabeled as tiger lake (was messing up gpu/platform detection), added warnings for hardware that just straight up wont boot (amd laptop cpus, mobile atom/celeron/pentium, rocket lake w/ no dgpu = no video output, atheros wifi past high sierra). also did a full audit of the kext db against live github data — fixed like 11 kexts that were silently broken (repo got renamed/deleted or the download pattern stopped matching, e.g. FakeSMC, VoodooHDA, NullEthernet, the whole BrcmPatchRAM bluetooth family), added 6 new ones that were missing, and yanked 3 that have zero working source anywhere rn. cleaned up a buncha unnecessary comment bloat in the code too.

v2.0.0 is out — biggest correctness release so far ngl. went thru the whole generation pipeline and found bugs that were producing EFIs that booted but were quietly broken. all fixed now:

• setup.py crashed on macos. stock macos ships python 3.9 and setup.py had 3.10-only syntax in it, so it just died before doing anything. runs on 3.8+ now.
• acpi renames were applied without the ssdt that made them safe. on every desktop + every ps/2-only laptop, _OSI got renamed to XOSI while nothing actually defined XOSI — so every firmware _OSI call pointed at a method that didn't exist. a rename only happens now if the table supplying its replacement is actually there.
• the instant-wake fix was backwards. it renamed each device's _PRW and left an XPRW method that nothing called. fixed to the standard GPRW → XGPR w/ SSDT-GPRW supplying the replacement.
• intel wifi just never loaded. itlwm.kext was given another kext's binary name so opencore refused to inject it. ExecutablePath now gets read straight from each bundle's own Info.plist so this class of bug literally can't happen again.
• usb port maps were doing nothing. the map's ExecutablePath pointed at a binary that plist-only bundles don't even have, and applying a map was disabling USBToolBox.kext — the thing that actually reads the map.
• laptops were loading two acpi tables that both defined _SB.USBX.

also fixed: recovery downloads for 5 macos versions shared a cache dir (big sur/el capitan, monterey/sierra, etc) and could serve the wrong image; MLB board serials were 16 chars instead of 17; kexts were getting auto-added from github repos that don't exist anymore; bluetooth kexts had overlapping version windows; iasl was being looked up under the wrong filename which silently killed ssdt compilation on every platform; windows ethernet detection used a deprecated query that could grab a vpn/tunnel adapter instead of ur real nic.

new — efi health check. point hackmate at any opencore efi, even one u built by hand, and it'll tell u whats actually wrong: orphaned acpi renames, kexts that'll never inject, usb ports that aren't really mapped, sip decoded flag by flag, deprecated kexts, missing -no_compat_check. it's on the welcome screen, or run it from terminal:

sudo .venv/bin/python3 src/hackmate.py --doctor            # finds your mounted EFI
.venv/bin/python3 src/hackmate.py --doctor /Volumes/EFI/EFI

read-only, no root needed, safe to run on a booted system.

new — kext sources get checked before your usb even gets formatted, so a dead download source shows up as a warning u can actually do something about instead of a kext just silently going missing.

v1.3.0 — windows users can just download one HackMate.exe from the releases page, no python, no venv, no setup.py needed. also fixed the amd config.plist crash, windows ssl error, macos lspci error. config.plist editor added to welcome screen too.

if u cloned before june 25th (running from hackmate-linux/): just run ur usual command, hackmate auto-migrates itself to the new src/ layout and relaunches. no manual steps.

if ur on macos and got a lspci not found error: macos is fully supported now. pull latest and rerun.

if usb formatting fails on windows: fixed in latest update, pull and try again. still failing? use the new already formatted button — format the usb as fat32 (gpt) in disk management urself first, then pick that option in hackmate.

if u got sudo: uv: command not found: don't use sudo uv run. always run w/ sudo .venv/bin/python3 src/hackmate.py after setup.

kaby lake (7th gen) users: tahoe shows up as an option for ur hardware now. pull latest and rerun.

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install

linux / macos

git clone https://github.com/riftaway7-code/hackmate.git
cd hackmate
python3 setup.py
sudo .venv/bin/python3 src/hackmate.py

always use the full path to the venv python (.venv/bin/python3) w/ sudo — not python3 or uv run. sudo doesn't inherit ur PATH so it won't find uv or ur user-installed packages.

windows (exe)

download HackMate.exe from the latest release and run it as administrator.

antivirus false positives: some avs (bkav, gridinsoft, zillya) flag the exe as malware. it's a known false positive w/ pyinstaller-built executables — every major av (defender, kaspersky, eset, crowdstrike, sophos) reports it clean. the exe is built transparently from source on github actions if u wanna check: build logs.

windows (from source)

has to be run as administrator. right-click powershell → run as administrator before any of this.

git clone https://github.com/riftaway7-code/hackmate.git
cd hackmate
python setup.py
.venv\Scripts\python.exe src\hackmate.py

always use .venv\Scripts\python.exe to run hackmate — not python or uv run. the venv is what makes sure all the deps are actually there.

gui (tkinter, no terminal needed)

prefer a windowed app over the terminal ui? hackmate_gui.py is the exact same backend just w/ a tkinter frontend instead of textual — no extra deps, tkinter ships w/ python already.

sudo .venv/bin/python3 src/hackmate_gui.py      # linux / macos
.venv\Scripts\python.exe src\hackmate_gui.py    # windows, run powershell as administrator

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what it actually does

1. scans ur hardware (cpu, gpu, audio, ethernet, wifi, touchpad, nvme, thunderbolt)
2. shows u which macos versions are compatible w/ ur exact hardware
3. u pick a usb drive (internal disks are hidden so u can't nuke urself)
4. fully automated from there:
   • formats usb as fat32 + creates the efi structure
   • downloads macos recovery straight from apple
   • generates smbios (serial, mlb, uuid, rom)
   • generates config.plist w/ the correct quirks for ur exact hardware
   • downloads kexts from github releases
   • downloads the latest opencore release
   • generates ssdts from ur actual dsdt using ssdttime

supported hardware

cpu generations: sandy bridge · ivy bridge · haswell · broadwell · skylake · kaby lake · coffee lake · comet lake · rocket lake · alder lake · raptor lake · amd ryzen / threadripper

laptops tested: thinkpad t480s, t480, t470, x1 carbon · dell xps 13/15 · hp elitebook · asus zenbook · acer aspire

platforms: laptops, desktops, mini-pcs

macos versions: ventura · sonoma · sequoia · tahoe (macos 16)

after install

• run usbtoolbox (saved to EFI/HackMate-Extras/) inside macos to map ur usb ports
• swap out the placeholder USBMap.kext w/ the one u generate — or just use hackmate's usb mapping screen

faq

do i need a mac to use hackmate? nah. hackmate runs on linux, windows, and macos. u can make the usb from any computer u have lying around.

will this work on my laptop/desktop? if ur cpu is intel 2nd–13th gen or amd ryzen, very likely yeah. run hackmate and it'll tell u exactly which macos versions work w/ ur hardware.

is this the same as following the dortania opencore guide by hand? hackmate uses the exact same tools (macrecovery, ssdttime, opencore) that dortania recommends, just automates every single step of it. the output efi is equivalent to what u'd build by hand — minus the hours of pain.

can i hackintosh a thinkpad? yeah — hackmate was literally built and tested on a thinkpad t480s. intel wifi (itlwm + heliport), trackpad (voodooi2c), all the common thinkpad hardware is supported.

does it work on windows without python? yep. grab HackMate.exe from the releases page, no python or deps needed at all.

my antivirus is flagging hackmate.exe known false positive w/ pyinstaller-built exes. every major av (defender, kaspersky, eset) reports it clean. built from source on github actions if u wanna verify — build logs.

support

hackmate is free and open source. if it saved u hours of config.plist hell, consider sponsoring:

notes

• macos is sourced directly from apple's servers
• uses the same tools the dortania guide recommends (macrecovery, ssdttime, opencore)
• tested on thinkpad t480s (i5-8350u, intel 8265 wifi, kaby lake-r)
• auto-updates itself on launch via github

oh right my tiktok is @hackmatetech

• also heres proof @theghostrdr