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> Linux native is not in the cards but it won't matter, it will work fine virtualized with hardly any performance penalty. If for some reason you insist on nati

> Linux native is not in the cards but it won't matter, it will work fine virtualized with hardly any performance penalty. If for some reason you insist on native linux, it's time to recognize that Apple hardware is not for you. How would one run a graphical Linux distro virtualized and by which software?

coldtea 6y ago
Parallels and VMWare Fusion would run it. Virtualbox as well. We can already do this on Intel Macs, Windows PCs, etc. Graphics are not a problem. Heck, we could since forever also run graphical macOS and Windows on virtualization apps...
- siraben 6y ago
  Is it enabled in VirtualBox by default?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    If you mean running GUIS, in the Intel version yes. The ARM/Apple Silicon version not sure if it's ready, might need work to even run cli.
    - skissane 6y ago
      Is there even ever going to be an ARM / Apple Silicon version? It would be a huge amount of work to add ARM support to VirtualBox. I would be surprised if Oracle were interested in making that investment.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        That's up to Oracle. If MS also starts pushing Windows for ARM (as they seem intenting to do), I think they might make an VirtualBox offering for ARM. In any case, we have Fusion and Parallels, and Fusion is now free for personal use iirc.
        skissane 6y ago
        VirtualBox is an acquired product. Originally developed by the German company Innotek, who were bought by Sun, and in turn bought by Oracle. It is useful enough to Oracle for them to keep it alive, but I'm not sure if Oracle would have ever started a project like VirtualBox themselves. The internals of VirtualBox are very x86-specific. It was not written with the idea of supporting non-x86 CPU architectures. I think trying to add ARM support would be a lot of work and redesign. VirtualBox used to support software-based virtualisation, which has something in common with CPU emulation – it is kind of emulating x86 on x86, and even uses some of QEMU's code for dynamic recompilation. But, that software-based virtualisation was only ever 32bit, it exploited obscure features of the x86 architecture (execution in ring 1), and in the latest release of VirtualBox has been removed entirely. (I worked for Oracle for almost ten years. Never at the level at which decisions like this were made. But still, I feel like I do have some feel for what kinds of decisions Oracle's leadership are likely to make. They could always surprise me, though.)
- walkingolof 6y ago
  M1 lack virtualization instructions, right?
  - stu2b50 6y ago
    No
  - tpush 6y ago
    No, just the DTK did.
- lucian1900 6y ago
  Probably not VirtualBox, it's very x86-specific.
rsanheim 6y ago
Install Parallels or VMware (once they have their universal builds ready), install your favorite Linux distro’s ARM build, and you are off to the races.

coldtea 6y ago

Parallels and VMWare Fusion would run it. Virtualbox as well. We can already do this on Intel Macs, Windows PCs, etc. Graphics are not a problem. Heck, we could since forever also run graphical macOS and Windows on virtualization apps...

siraben 6y ago
Is it enabled in VirtualBox by default?
- coldtea 6y ago
  If you mean running GUIS, in the Intel version yes. The ARM/Apple Silicon version not sure if it's ready, might need work to even run cli.
  - skissane 6y ago
    Is there even ever going to be an ARM / Apple Silicon version? It would be a huge amount of work to add ARM support to VirtualBox. I would be surprised if Oracle were interested in making that investment.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      That's up to Oracle. If MS also starts pushing Windows for ARM (as they seem intenting to do), I think they might make an VirtualBox offering for ARM. In any case, we have Fusion and Parallels, and Fusion is now free for personal use iirc.
      - skissane 6y ago
        VirtualBox is an acquired product. Originally developed by the German company Innotek, who were bought by Sun, and in turn bought by Oracle. It is useful enough to Oracle for them to keep it alive, but I'm not sure if Oracle would have ever started a project like VirtualBox themselves. The internals of VirtualBox are very x86-specific. It was not written with the idea of supporting non-x86 CPU architectures. I think trying to add ARM support would be a lot of work and redesign. VirtualBox used to support software-based virtualisation, which has something in common with CPU emulation – it is kind of emulating x86 on x86, and even uses some of QEMU's code for dynamic recompilation. But, that software-based virtualisation was only ever 32bit, it exploited obscure features of the x86 architecture (execution in ring 1), and in the latest release of VirtualBox has been removed entirely. (I worked for Oracle for almost ten years. Never at the level at which decisions like this were made. But still, I feel like I do have some feel for what kinds of decisions Oracle's leadership are likely to make. They could always surprise me, though.)
walkingolof 6y ago
M1 lack virtualization instructions, right?
- stu2b50 6y ago
  No
- tpush 6y ago
  No, just the DTK did.
lucian1900 6y ago
Probably not VirtualBox, it's very x86-specific.

rsanheim 6y ago

Install Parallels or VMware (once they have their universal builds ready), install your favorite Linux distro’s ARM build, and you are off to the races.