Liberator Beta 1

Liberator Beta 1: macOS 27.2 on Intel PCs with NVIDIA cards

Liberator is a new Mac app. It takes an OpenCore PC that runs macOS 15 or macOS 26 with the NullMoth NVIDIA driver, and moves it to macOS 27.2 with one button: Prepare for Golden Gate.

Apple builds macOS 27 for Apple silicon only. Liberator downloads macOS 27 from Apple, builds the Intel startup files for it, puts it on its own volumes beside your current macOS, installs the NullMoth driver for macOS 27, and adds the layer that runs Apple's arm64-only programs on an Intel processor. Your current macOS stays where it is.

This is a beta

It has been tested on one desktop PC: an Intel processor with an RTX 50-series card. Other boards, AMD processors and laptops are untried. Expect problems, and send a report when you hit one.

What you need

• macOS 15 or macOS 26 running through OpenCore, with the NullMoth NVIDIA driver working
• about 102 GB free on the macOS disk (about 27 GB of it is downloads, most of that macOS 27 from Apple)
• a wired network connection
• about 30 minutes plus the download
• a backup of anything you cannot lose

How to use it

1. Download Liberator-Mac-0.1.0.zip, unzip it and open Liberator on macOS 15 or 26.
2. Press Prepare for Golden Gate and confirm once.
3. When it says it is done, restart. The start text pauses at "PCI configuration" for up to two minutes.

If it stops part-way, press the button again. Finished steps are not repeated and the downloads are kept.

To go back, choose your macOS 15 or 26 disk in the OpenCore boot picker, open Liberator there, and press Cancel Golden Gate (puts the old startup files back) or Remove macOS 27 (also erases the macOS 27 volumes Liberator made).

What works

• Start to the login window and the desktop on the NVIDIA card, with Metal
• Finder, Dock, System Settings and most of Apple's apps
• Wired network, USB keyboard and mouse

What it changes on your PC

macOS 27 on an Intel PC needs the same reduced protections the driver already needs on macOS 15 and 26, and more of them: System Integrity Protection is lowered and Apple's code-signing enforcement (AMFI) is switched off for macOS 27. Treat this install as a test system. Do not use it for work where every account on the machine is not trusted.

Known problems

• No Wi-Fi and no Bluetooth
• Books, Journal, Maps, Reminders and Voice Memos do not work yet
• Spotlight search does not work
• The login window can show a message that the System keychain cannot be found; press Cancel
• Some command-line tools print a line starting with [host]; it is a diagnostic and can be ignored
• The Dock and other glass surfaces can look flat and dark
• A run that fails after the system copy can leave one extra volume named "Macintosh HD" in the same container; delete it in Disk Utility before the next try

Files

File	Size	SHA-256
Liberator-Mac-0.1.0.zip	3 MB	9f2cd5d90daa1ffd193e92b878264949fb7a22f77e2423412019308e2fd5976f
nullmoth-v3-kit-3.0.0-beta.1.tar.gz	157 MB	cdbefe771ea9fb5fcef06f0102af0273cc8efb5ee1f200b122e7d9a1959d738a

Liberator downloads the second file itself and checks it against the SHA-256 it was built with. You only need it by hand if the download fails: choose Use a file I already downloaded in the app.

If something goes wrong

Start your macOS 15 or 26 from the boot picker and press Send a report in Liberator. It reads the macOS 27 logs from there, so it works when macOS 27 never reached its desktop. Quote the report ID when you ask for help.