6 ms·

Can anyone comment on the possibility of going in the opposite direction? I’m considering buying the frame.work laptop, daily driving pop!_os and then virtuali

by jjcon 5y ago

Can anyone comment on the possibility of going in the opposite direction? I’m considering buying the frame.work laptop, daily driving pop!_os and then virtualizing OSX on it for the few OSX programs I use (this supports framework and not apple). It looks like it may be fairly easy and possible with a 10-20% performance hit? https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM From what I can tell you can pass through a single GPU with a bit of work, even a iGPU? Is that correct?

heavyset_go 5y ago
This and VirtualBox work well for Mac emulation on Linux.
flatiron 5y ago
I’ve never passed a GPU to a mac guest but I have done Xcode work in a VM and it worked fine on Arch. If I had the cash I would too get a framework laptop!
mixmastamyk 5y ago
macOS doesn't work on non-apple hardware, including under VMs. Unless you've patched it somehow?
- inside_out_life 5y ago
  Have you been living under a rock? Do you know what a hackintosh is? It's been going for so long that ccurrent bootloaders allow to run it completely unmodified, working updates etc. macOS also runs under some VMs, with some config tweaks
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    I'm familiar with that, why I mentioned "patched" in my above comment. It's still a tenuous position to be in, unless you enjoy diagnosing errors rather than working.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      Actually, because macOS natively supports VMWare (including ESXI), you can use that quite easily on non-Apple hardware! Now, this too doesn't quite work out of the box because VMWare’s products have a completely artificial check and wherein they'll refuse to boot macOS on non-Apple hardware by default. To get around this, VMWare needs to be patched, but macOS runs entirely unmodified! And because it's ultimately the same VMWare codebase (quite literally the same binary in the case of ESXI), it runs just as well as it would on a Mac. Native Hackintosh setups, when done properly, also work much better than many non-Hackintosh users assume. The initial setup process can be quite time consuming and fiddly, but if and when you get everything working, you can not touch it for years and it will be be just like an actual Mac. Even across updates! You absolutely don't need to "enjoy diagnosing errors rather than working," except at the start.
- sneak 5y ago
  This is false. OSX runs fine on non-Apple hardware without patching. https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    This uses OpenCore, which does quite a bit of in-memory kernel patching. Now, the job of a boot-loader is to set up a friendly environment for the OS, so I'm not sure where the line is. But OpenCore goes pretty far!
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Virtualizing macOS on non-macOS hosts works ok, with a couple of caveats: * macOS lacks drivers for GPUs commonly emulated by VM software, and as such runs absolutely horribly without graphics acceleration because it assumes the presence of a competent GPU at all times - software rasterization seems to be intended to be used only as an absolute last-resort fallback. As such, passthrough of a supported GPU (generally AMD, though Intel iGPUs might work) is basically a requirement. * It's technically against the macOS EULA. Apple hasn't gone after anybody for it to date, but it doesn't mean they won't. This is particularly relevant for devs building for Apple platforms.
- my123 5y ago
  For macOS on arm64, the software renderer fallback is gone. No GPU? WindowServer crashes and you'll never see the GUI.
raihansaputra 5y ago
I'm also considering this. The software renderer should be a non-issue if you successfully passthrough the iGPU. The PopOs won't have any display device, but you can still access it through ssh from the VM Mac. Look into /r/vfio and the discord.
adevx 5y ago
I've used this quite a bit for iOS development with Xcode. It required a patched VMware player or workstation instance. Not sure about other hypervisors. Never had any issues and was running fine on a Ubuntu laptop with 16GB / Intel i7-4720HQ

by jjcon 5y ago

heavyset_go 5y ago

This and VirtualBox work well for Mac emulation on Linux.

flatiron 5y ago

I’ve never passed a GPU to a mac guest but I have done Xcode work in a VM and it worked fine on Arch. If I had the cash I would too get a framework laptop!

mixmastamyk 5y ago

macOS doesn't work on non-apple hardware, including under VMs. Unless you've patched it somehow?

inside_out_life 5y ago
Have you been living under a rock? Do you know what a hackintosh is? It's been going for so long that ccurrent bootloaders allow to run it completely unmodified, working updates etc. macOS also runs under some VMs, with some config tweaks
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  I'm familiar with that, why I mentioned "patched" in my above comment. It's still a tenuous position to be in, unless you enjoy diagnosing errors rather than working.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Actually, because macOS natively supports VMWare (including ESXI), you can use that quite easily on non-Apple hardware! Now, this too doesn't quite work out of the box because VMWare’s products have a completely artificial check and wherein they'll refuse to boot macOS on non-Apple hardware by default. To get around this, VMWare needs to be patched, but macOS runs entirely unmodified! And because it's ultimately the same VMWare codebase (quite literally the same binary in the case of ESXI), it runs just as well as it would on a Mac. Native Hackintosh setups, when done properly, also work much better than many non-Hackintosh users assume. The initial setup process can be quite time consuming and fiddly, but if and when you get everything working, you can not touch it for years and it will be be just like an actual Mac. Even across updates! You absolutely don't need to "enjoy diagnosing errors rather than working," except at the start.
sneak 5y ago
This is false. OSX runs fine on non-Apple hardware without patching. https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  This uses OpenCore, which does quite a bit of in-memory kernel patching. Now, the job of a boot-loader is to set up a friendly environment for the OS, so I'm not sure where the line is. But OpenCore goes pretty far!

kitsunesoba 5y ago

Virtualizing macOS on non-macOS hosts works ok, with a couple of caveats: * macOS lacks drivers for GPUs commonly emulated by VM software, and as such runs absolutely horribly without graphics acceleration because it assumes the presence of a competent GPU at all times - software rasterization seems to be intended to be used only as an absolute last-resort fallback. As such, passthrough of a supported GPU (generally AMD, though Intel iGPUs might work) is basically a requirement. * It's technically against the macOS EULA. Apple hasn't gone after anybody for it to date, but it doesn't mean they won't. This is particularly relevant for devs building for Apple platforms.

my123 5y ago
For macOS on arm64, the software renderer fallback is gone. No GPU? WindowServer crashes and you'll never see the GUI.

raihansaputra 5y ago

I'm also considering this. The software renderer should be a non-issue if you successfully passthrough the iGPU. The PopOs won't have any display device, but you can still access it through ssh from the VM Mac. Look into /r/vfio and the discord.

adevx 5y ago

I've used this quite a bit for iOS development with Xcode. It required a patched VMware player or workstation instance. Not sure about other hypervisors. Never had any issues and was running fine on a Ubuntu laptop with 16GB / Intel i7-4720HQ