I came across a project on GitHub called VirtualIntelMacOnAppleSilicon, which allows you to run Tiger and later versions of Mac OS X for Intel processors on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. For someone who believes Aqua is the best user interface ever created for operating systems, and wholeheartedly hopes Scott Forstall will come back and save us, this project is just a godsend!

For context: I’m well aware you can run these OSes in virtual machines such as UTM, but hardware acceleration didn’t become a reality until very recently, as discussed on Emaculation. Without hardware acceleration, you not only lose special visual effects powered by Quartz Extreme and Core Image; more importantly, the UI just feels sluggish. VirtualIntelMacOnAppleSilicon solves the issue very well and gives you full hardware acceleration.

The performance is quite good on my MacBook Pro M2. And the app is well thought out. Almost everything you need is integrated, such as file sharing with the host (or vice versa), Library view, etc.

But VirtualIntelMacOnAppleSilicon, as its name implies, is for Mac OS X for Intel processors. What if you want to run even earlier versions of Mac OS X that were only for PowerPC? ppc-osx-vgpu to the rescue.

ppc-osx-vgpu allows you to go as far back as Jaguar. It also supports Tiger and Leopard. But somehow it doesn’t explicitly mention Panther in its README, which to me is a bit weird.

Running PowerPC versions of Mac OS X feels faster on Apple Silicon Macs. And Jaguar, OMG, although I like Tiger’s UI the best, Jaguar’s UI is also just stunning! By the way, Jaguar is the first version of Mac OS X I ever used daily.

Before I finish up: hacking all kinds of devices, OSes and desktop environments has been exploding recently, thanks to AI. I guess before long we’ll see people just re-create early Aqua on Linux. And I, for one, may become one of them :D