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[Guide] Dell XPS 13 9360 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.x - LTS (Long-Term Support) Guide

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This will most likely change the ACPI tables and setup_var locations, so before anyone upgrades it will be worth doing a diff on the bios dumps.
 
Has anybody figured out how to boot with desired brightness using AppleBacklight? I've considered changing the max setting in the injector plist (since who uses 100% brightness anyway?), but that really is just a bit too hacky for me.
 
Has anybody figured out how to boot with desired brightness using AppleBacklight? I've considered changing the max setting in the injector plist (since who uses 100% brightness anyway?), but that really is just a bit too hacky for me.

You need to have working NVRAM. Then backlight-level is saved/restored across reboot/shutdown/power-up.
 
Big thanks to bozma88, been using this setup for the past few weeks and it's been absolutely flawless!

One question - any idea if a Thunderbolt eGPU would work with this laptop? eGPUs work with the XPS 13 on Windows, but I have no clue if that means anything on a Hackintosh setup.
 
Big thanks to bozma88, been using this setup for the past few weeks and it's been absolutely flawless!

One question - any idea if a Thunderbolt eGPU would work with this laptop? eGPUs work with the XPS 13 on Windows, but I have no clue if that means anything on a Hackintosh setup.

Thunderbolt is not tested but a few posts here and there suggest it might be working with minor effort.
Do your research and report.
I think eGPUS which are natively supported on Macs should work.
A few things to notice:
XPS line shuts down the controllers when USB-c is left unplugged. MacOS does not support controller hot-swapping so, at least while you're trying to make it work, remember to plug the external device before a cold boot.
Additionally, remember that the XPS line has PCI-E wired with only two of four lanes, so any hyper-fast SSD or eGPU will exhibit a considerable bottleneck.
 
@bozma88 - Thank you for putting this guide together. Paired with @RehabMan detailed guides, I was motivated enough to purchase the exact same configuration XPS 9360 and go all in. I installed Mac OS X on a Dell Mini 9 back in the day, but that was cake compared to this process. Unfortunately, I have hit a rough patch. Let me do my best to catch you up to speed in hopes of getting some help from the community here.

I followed all the guides to the T. I had Mac OS X running. Patched all the kexts, mounted the EFI etc etc. However, I could only boot from the boot menu via USB. I was double checking everything and realized that I had installed Mac OS Sierra 10.12.4! Since I also plan to use this as my daily driver, I did not want to run into any unexpected crashes in the future, therefore, I decided to get the correct OS Sierra version (10.12.3) supported in this guide and restart the entire process.

During the install process, I boot to Clover via USB and I start an install (with verbose selected). I click through the install process and the install process goes almost all the way through, however, when it says "6 seconds remaining" the computer restarts and goes back to the select language screen (which is the beginning of the install process). I restart the computer, but I cannot reenter the Clover menu to enter what @RehabMan refers to as Phase 2. I've tried at least a half dozen times, switched USB installers, tried MBR and GPT partitions, but it does the same thing over and over again.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Disclaimer, I'm a noob and I don't understand the lingo, but I can follow directions :)

EDIT: Success. I installed Clover via legacy instructions and installed Mac with verbose option selected. Everything seems to be functioning well except one problem. If I am using the laptop with the computer plugged into an outlet and I remove the plug, the computer freezes and requires a force reboot. Conversely, if the laptop is on battery power and I plug it in, the same thing happens. Any suggestions?
 
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If I am using the laptop with the computer plugged into an outlet and I remove the plug, the computer freezes and requires a force reboot. Conversely, if the laptop is on battery power and I plug it in, the same thing happens. Any suggestions?

I believe the latest solution is at #600. @jkbuha might be able to provide more info, though as far as I can tell the root cause has not been discovered.

I've had a lot of problems result from improperly made installation media. A checklist that I would follow before resorting to legacy mode would be:
  • Try redownloading Sierra from the App Store, maybe on a different Mac
  • Try a different usb stick, preferably as new as possible
  • Erase entire drive with Disk Utility before each install attempt
  • Have you tried both OsxAptioFixDrv-64 and OsxAptioFix2Drv-64? (separately ofc)
  • I've heard reports of success by trying a different usb port as well
  • Finally there is the BaseBinaries method that might get you through installation if you keep crashing right at the end.
Personally I've had much better success using usb3 rather than usb2 sticks for installation on this laptop.
 
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Wanted to drop by with more observations after a solid 2 months of use.
  • No data corruption with the settings provided in the OP. Wakes up almost instantaneously.
  • 4k sectors makes the setup much easier, no need for NVMe kexts, etc.
  • USBInjectAll from a few pages back fixes USB drives detected as internal, although trying to format them glitches out. macOS will unmount and format just fine, can't mount again. Formatting it again will mount it properly.
  • Bartender 2 crashes on every boot. I wish I could get the logs, but I'm assuming this isn't normal macOS behavior.
  • Flash on Chrome does not like full screen video, playing back very choppy. Safari works fine. I think I narrowed this down to PPAPI Flash plugins, as that's what Chrome uses as of 56 or 57, while Safari still uses NPAPI. Again, don't know if it's macOS behavior or our setup.
  • Sometimes after wake audio won't work, but simply plugging and unplugging something into the headphone jack resolves it.
I haven't updated to 10.12.4 yet, but I'll probably start fresh and see if some of these issues persist, most notably the Bartender and Flash ones. Besides that, the build is solid. Battery life is great, machine works nicely for dev work, and macOS looks amazing with the QHD screen.
 
Wanted to drop by with more observations after a solid 2 months of use.
  • No data corruption with the settings provided in the OP. Wakes up almost instantaneously.
  • 4k sectors makes the setup much easier, no need for NVMe kexts, etc.
  • USBInjectAll from a few pages back fixes USB drives detected as internal, although trying to format them glitches out. macOS will unmount and format just fine, can't mount again. Formatting it again will mount it properly.
  • Bartender 2 crashes on every boot. I wish I could get the logs, but I'm assuming this isn't normal macOS behavior.
  • Flash on Chrome does not like full screen video, playing back very choppy. Safari works fine. I think I narrowed this down to PPAPI Flash plugins, as that's what Chrome uses as of 56 or 57, while Safari still uses NPAPI. Again, don't know if it's macOS behavior or our setup.
  • Sometimes after wake audio won't work, but simply plugging and unplugging something into the headphone jack resolves it.
I haven't updated to 10.12.4 yet, but I'll probably start fresh and see if some of these issues persist, most notably the Bartender and Flash ones. Besides that, the build is solid. Battery life is great, machine works nicely for dev work, and macOS looks amazing with the QHD screen.

Thanks for the feedback.

- I experience the same Disk utility bug, but only when formatting FAT partitions. Same bug experienced on a original Macs running 10.12. Don't know what is causing it. A double format always works.
- Bartender 1 crashed for me, I was forced to upgrade to Bartender 2. Works flawlessly. What's your SIP value in Clover config?
- Never had problems with audio. Is it a problem of autodetect (output is locked to HP and you have to force a new detect cycle to switch to speakers) or are you maybe running some virtual audio device like Boom?
- 10.12.4 requires some changes to backlight control drivers. I have not updated the guide yet, will do that soon.
 
Flash on Chrome does not like full screen video, playing back very choppy. Safari works fine. I think I narrowed this down to PPAPI Flash plugins, as that's what Chrome uses as of 56 or 57, while Safari still uses NPAPI. Again, don't know if it's macOS behavior or our setup

I actually didnt have that issue up until yesterday. Then I upgraded to 10.12.5 beta 5 and the flash is acting up, freezing the chrome tab. I'll try to downgrade chrome or try the dev build.
 
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