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On my x86 MBP, I run GNU/Linux in VMWare Fusion, full screen. That gives me a combination of both worlds, which I can easily switch between with 4-finger swipe.
by jlokier 4y ago
On my x86 MBP, I run GNU/Linux in VMWare Fusion, full screen. That gives me a combination of both worlds, which I can easily switch between with 4-finger swipe.
I did battery life tests running the same Linux distro natively vs in a VM on MacOS. What I found surprised me: battery life was better with the VM than native, so I stayed with the VM.
When a VM is used, driver issues are effectively absent as Apple drivers handle most devices. (USB devices can be passed through to the VM.) The touch pads are properly calibrated and gestures work. Things like external displays just work. GPU access is not the same as from native Linux but the basic OpenGL support in VMWare Fusion was good enough for what I wanted to do. (That's not true any more though.)
Historically I've been more of a Linux user (and developer) on other laptops but it became interesting to get to know the MacOS world as well while still using Linux for dev work.
- titzer 4y ago> I run GNU/Linux in VMWare Fusion Just to be clear, is that an arm64 linux? Because emulating x86-64-linux still seems to be not very good.
- apatheticonion 4y agoI do this also (with Arm64 Linux) but it does ruin your battery.
- vinceguidry 4y agoI also run Linux in VWWare Fusion and it's mostly great. But mics just don't pass through well. I have to switch to OSX to run Teams at all, and also to Slack if I need to huddle.