Mini vMac on Fedora

Mini vMac is a very common “Classic Mac OS” emulator, and this article contains the instructions required to get it running on Fedora 41.

1. Download Mini vMac from here:
   1. Direct link for Linux executable.
   2. Extract the file, which will create a minivmac-36.04-lx64.bin folder with a Mini vMac executable inside.
   3. But if you run Mini vMac now, it won’t do much without a ROM!
2. Download all ROMs from here.
   1. Download link for “Old World ROMs”
   2. Unzip and copy Old_World_Mac_Roms/128KB ROMs/1986-03 - 4D1F8172 - MacPlus v3.ROM as vMac.ROM
   3. Save a copy of the vMac.ROM file next to the Mini vMac application.
   4. But if you run Mini vMac now, it boots, but it’s missing a System disk!
3. Download System 7 from here and extract the file.
4. Boot Mini vMac and drag and drop the System7.5.dsk file on the window.
   1. But if you run ‘Mini vMac’ now, there will be some extensions failing!
5. Create a bootable disk with the command below:
   1. dd if=/dev/zero of=disk1.dsk bs=83886080 count=1
   2. Drag and drop disk1.dsk on the emulator window.
   3. Initialize the disk, give it any name.
   4. Copy the “System Folder” from the “Macintosh HD” disk to the new disk. It can take a while.
   5. In the “Extensions” folder, remove the “QuickTime” and “Apple Photo Access” extensions (the ones not working).
   6. Shut down the emulator.
6. Move disk1.dsk next to the Mini vMac application.
7. Double-click the Mini vMac app. The ROM and disk files will be used automatically to boot the Mac emulator into System 7.5.

Et voilà! You have a vMac retro Mac emulator ready to use. Next week we’ll put it to work.