Bootsmith 1.0.0

First release.

Install

brew install --cask mesquitadev/tap/bootsmith
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Bootsmith.app

Or download Bootsmith.zip below, unzip, and move Bootsmith.app to Applications.

The app is signed ad-hoc, not notarized by Apple — notarization needs a paid Apple Developer account. macOS refuses the first launch until you clear the quarantine flag with the command above, or right-click the app → Open → Open once.

Grant Full Disk Access to Bootsmith in System Settings › Privacy & Security. Since macOS 13 removable volumes are protected, and without it even root cannot open /dev/rdiskN.

What it does

Writes hybrid Linux images (Ubuntu, Debian, Proxmox, Fedora, Rocky) to a USB drive so it boots on both legacy BIOS machines and modern UEFI ones. It reads the image to report how it boots, names the volumes you are about to destroy, and verifies the drive against the image afterwards.

No partition scheme to choose: a modern Linux ISO already carries a boot signature in the MBR and an EFI System Partition. Bootsmith reports what it found and copies byte for byte.

Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel), macOS 14+. English and Portuguese (Brazil).