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HackMate v4.0.0

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@riftaway7-code riftaway7-code released this 10 Sep 04:11
· 173 commits to main since this release
v4.0.0
fba8830

[4.0.0] - 2026-09-09

The biggest correctness pass since 2.0.0. Most of it is hardware detection: whole families of CPUs, GPUs, and NICs were being misidentified, and the wrong identification quietly produced an EFI that booted but had the wrong SMBIOS, the wrong framebuffer, or a NIC/audio device that never came up. Also ships HackMate-Core (a branded graphical boot picker) and a "why" explanation for every choice the generator makes.

Fixed

CPU / platform identification

  • Intel gen-11 desktops (Rocket Lake) were labeled Tiger Lake, which cascaded into the wrong GPU and platform handling. oc_platform was also being computed before platform detection had run.
  • Intel Core Ultra 100-series (Meteor Lake) was unrecognized and silently fell back to a Kaby Lake framebuffer.
  • Ryzen 2000/3000-series G/U-suffix APUs were classified as a later Zen architecture than they are.
  • AMD Zen 4/5 desktops were given the Intel-only CpuTopologyRebuild kext, and a desktop chassis was being misdetected as a laptop running on a UPS.
  • Pentium/Celeron CPUID spoofing now follows the CPU generation, and those chips are capped at Monterey (the last release they can run).

GPU

  • macOS GPU detection, when it saw both an iGPU and a dGPU, discarded whichever one it decided was the "loser" entirely instead of keeping both.
  • AMD RX Vega APUs were classified as discrete cards; modern NNNM-style iGPU names weren't recognized as APUs at all.
  • Intel iGPU + AMD dGPU desktops never got NootRX/RadeonSensor for the discrete card.
  • nv_disable=1 was never applied on Optimus laptops (Intel iGPU + Nvidia dGPU).
  • An unsupported Nvidia GPU was blocking every macOS version, which defeated the GOP-passthrough fallback that exists for exactly that case.
  • GOP passthrough was never enabled for systems with no GPU at all, and there was no warning either.

SMBIOS

  • AMD laptops were handed Intel-only MacBookPro16,x SMBIOS models.

Storage / networking / audio device properties

  • The NVMe "built-in" device property was hardcoded to one fixed PCI path — wrong on many boards.
  • I225/I226 spoofs and the Realtek / I219 built-in properties were likewise pinned to fixed PCI paths.
  • Linux ethernet detection had no I225/I226 branches, so those NICs were left unidentified.
  • Linux audio detection could pick a GPU's HDMI audio function over the real onboard codec.
  • Onboard audio layout-id was injected on the Intel PCH path only, leaving AMD boards silent.

ACPI

  • SSDT-AWAC and SSDT-PMC were being injected on every modern AMD desktop, where neither belongs.

BIOS guidance

  • The BIOS checklist was missing IOMMU guidance for AMD and, in one path, suggested disabling the system's only GPU.

Kext database

  • Full audit against live GitHub data fixed ~11 kexts that were silently broken (repo renamed/deleted, or the release asset pattern stopped matching) — including FakeSMC, VoodooHDA, NullEthernet, and the whole BrcmPatchRAM Bluetooth family.
  • 3 kexts removed that no longer have a working source anywhere.

Other

  • CI suite is green again (had 7 pre-existing failures).

Added

  • HackMate-Core — a branded graphical OpenCore boot picker built on an OpenCanopy theme (the picker chrome only; the OpenCore binaries are unmodified). On by default with a first-run notice, wired through both the TUI and CLI build paths, with a QEMU test harness and a --minimal preview mode.
  • Rationale / explain — every decision the config.plist generator makes now comes with a plain-language reason and a link to the relevant Dortania section.
  • ocvalidate — OpenCore's own validator is run against the generated config as part of the build.
  • Live AMD_Vanilla patches — the AMD kernel patches are fetched from upstream with a 24-hour cache, falling back to the bundled copy offline.
  • GitHub release metadata caching — release lookups are cached on disk, and GH_TOKEN / the gh CLI are used for auth when available (avoids rate limits).
  • Hardware spec files — describe a target machine in a file to generate an EFI for hardware you're not currently running on.
  • Pre-build hardware warnings for configs that simply won't boot: AMD laptop CPUs, mobile Atom/Celeron/Pentium, Rocket Lake with no dGPU (no video out), Atheros WiFi past High Sierra.
  • Chipset-aware SSDT selection, closer to Dortania's prebuilt SSDT matrix; SSDT-GPI0 now targets the real GPIO controller path pulled from the DSDT.
  • 6 new kexts in the database.
  • Test coverage for previously untested modules: discord_prompt, config_editor, project_stats, efi_doctor, oc_log.
  • HackMate Community — a Reddit-style discussion board hosted on GitHub Pages.

Changed

  • Kext load order (LOAD_ORDER) is now complete, and touchpad kext selection trusts profile.touchpad_type.
  • Cleaned up comment bloat across the codebase.
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