The UTM experience (https://mac.getutm.app/) has been stellar for me. Knowing that others have commented on this being a rough initial release, I really have no reason to try it out.
And while UTM was relatively unknown a year ago, it's become quite popular in my circle of Apple Silicon users, so I imagine VMWare's reception on Apple Silicon is going to be lukewarm at best.
UTM's lack of any accelerated graphics makes a non-starter for most desktop applications these days. It's fine as a frontend to QEMU, but that's all it is. Fusion and Parallels will continue to dominate this space on MacOS.
I just got Windows 7 running on an M1 Macbook Pro with UTM today actually. It took a bit of configuring but I am getting pretty amazing performance considering it's having to do a full ISA emulation (not using Rosetta.. QEMU can use Rosetta to translate for Linux ELF's in Linux VM's but it doesn't seem like it can do so under an x86 Windows VM). I have one legacy Windows application that I need sometimes randomly when traveling and this is amazing that it runs as well as it does- it is a program using OpenGL and the performance is useable for basic tasks and I am just using a the default VGA card emulation, I haven't even setup any advanced GPU card emulation yet. I'm blown away.
Alternatively, go there[0], click "Download now" under "Fusion 13 Pro for macOS 12+".
Upon first launch, it'll prompt you to either enter a Pro license, try Pro for 30 days, or go straight to Player (still requires a free license key, obtained via registration).
I gave up after 45 minutes... They want so much information/cookies/tracking but even after changing browsers and (temporarily) disabling all security/privacy, I couldn't download.
If you just want a Linux kernel and user space, to see that your stuff works OK there as well, I'd really recommend Multipass from Canonical. It likely only works with Ubuntu but it is nicely integrated with Macos and requires no setup.
In practice I’ve found it more practical to create cloud VMs although I’ve traditionally used run a Linux and Windows VM on MacBooks. Or just buy a tiny server for a few hundred bucks and leave it plugged in at home and remote into that.
There’s too many issues around ARM support and the fact that other Linux and Windows machines generally won’t be running ARM. Apple Silicon also has expensive memory upgrades.
Remote Desktop to a virtualized Windows 10 running on VMWare ESXi is what I replaced VMWare Fusion with even before I got this M1. It's unlikely I'll ever upgrade now.
Great news, I have been waiting quite some time for this! I am using VMware Fusion a lot on my Intel based Macs (most of my day-to-day work is on Linux in a VM) and just have been waiting for VMWare on ARM Macs.
While I also have used Parallels, I just find VMware the solution which works best with me. One of the features of course was to be able to run modern Linux kernels without the needs of installing custom drivers as the necessary drivers where part of the Linux kernel. Parallels requires drivers which often where quite a bit behind the Fedora releases.
I don't like that Parallels requires a subscription to get more than 8 GB of RAM in a virtual machine so I'll be sticking with VMWare Fusion when I get an Apple Silicon Mac.
That's assuming that I decide that I actually need such a product. Most of my use of VMWare Fusion on my Intel Mac is to run Linux VMs. I recently have switched to using Docker for that.
The only real snag was that I want services running in a Docker container to be reachable from Mac processes on the same port they would be on when deployed on a real server somewhere. E.g., if I've got a server that would be foo.com when live on a real server that I'm testing locally in a container, I want it to appear at some_ip:443 on my Mac, not on something like localhost:8443 that Docker maps to port 443 in the container.
That turned out to be not too difficult to deal with by using Wireguard. Specifically, Wireguard between the Linux VM that Docker Mac creates to run containers and the Mac.
If Docker Mac works as well on Apple Silicon I might be able to just stick with that and not need either VMWare or Parallels.
VMware laid off their US based Workstation/Fusion team a few years back and moved development over to China. The China based team was then laid off in 2021 with development moving to India.
The graphics support in particular sounds like a total mess:
> For Graphics, Fusion 13 sports OpenGL 4.3 in Windows and Linux VMs on Intel, and in Linux VMs on Apple Silicon.
> On Intel, Windows continues to enjoy DirectX 11 graphics, and Fusion continues to support eGPU devices for incredible performance using some of the fastest GPU’s available.
> On Apple Silicon, Fusion can deliver OpenGL 4.3 with blazing fast 3D hardware acceleration to arm-based Linux virtual machines with Linux kernel 5.19 or greater.
So if I am reading this correctly, Windows on Apple Silicon doesn't have accelerated 3D at all? And even on Intel they are 10 full years behind with no support for DirectX 12.
It probably depends on your use case. You seem to run Mac OS inside Mac OS?
On my end I've tried Parallels but my use case involves a lot of passing USB devices to a Windows or Linux VM and VMWare has been much better for that.
Although... the point is moot now. I bought a new amd box for running the x86 stuff, in preparation to moving my OS X machine to Mx when I feel brave enough.
Installed it on my Intel MBP, upgraded my virtual machines to a new format version and now regretting it. The Bootcamp VM does not boot at all and the Win 7 VM is in an infinite restart-repair loop.
recovery,
reset on csr then
reboot delete old boot camp very small link (<100mb) and do a new boot camp vm and
go back to recovery and enable csr
Reboot
I tried VMWire fusion to run multiple browsers to get tickets for Glastonbury.
Are virtual machines ever not slow?
Running 9 virtual machines on an M1 mac, did not work...
I needed to be able to take over at any point, to enter the credit card details etc if successful, so puppeteer would not have been a good solution.
I think I need to rent multiple devices just for the day it seems. Chrome offers multiple profiles so I had 9 browsers, but you only get 60 refreshes per minute n an IP address. I would need to redirect some of the chrome instances, and have the screen real estate to handle it.
I would be tempted to try this but both of my M1 Macs only have 8G of memory.
For text/shell only Linux, I have been using https://github.com/lima-vm/lima for the last week and for what I needed (I wanted to setup picolisp and Emacs for some experiments) it was all good.
I switched to Parallels due to VMware's lack of Apple Silicon support; it's been a great experience for Windows 11 (and does a great job of bundling the Windows 11 ARM installer, etc.)
Given the significant support for virtualization in macOS and the popularity of macs amongst unix devs, I am a bit surprised that Apple has not yet sherlocked the VMM configuration UI.
Virtualization is basically an API library (Virtualization.framework) from apple's perspective where they expect others to make programs to manage it, so not so surprising from that perspective.
you can get matte screen, same product as papermate uses for ipad pro to let Apple Pencil feel like it's writing on paper
after a couple years of matte, i can't stand iPad Pro screen w/o it
used to swear by trackpoint, it can't "gesture" or "multi-touch" tho, magic trackpad converges Macbook with iPad, so worth getting one for desktop Macs too
The Linux guys will get there first and, in either case, it will help Apple sell more Macs --just don't do it without AppleCare+ and backups of yoh backups (non-Apple software is largely ignorant of Apple's sometimes obscure and marginal thermal management systems). BTW, don't be shy about buying an m1pro/max based MBP --looking at the thermal plate they put on the m2 in the 2022 MBA, it will be a while before I'd trust the new enclosures with a warmer chipset.
Bit of a tangent but do you know of other Black Friday things that the HN crowd would be interested in? Like, I know shodan.io usually does a discount on lifetime subs or something around now.
The hypervisor framework doesn't provide a lot of extra things which are implemented by whatever VMM you're using. Qemu can also use Hypervisor.framework but you certainly wouldn't say it's exactly 1-1 w/ VMware Fusion.
[+] [-] jasoneckert|3 years ago|reply
And while UTM was relatively unknown a year ago, it's become quite popular in my circle of Apple Silicon users, so I imagine VMWare's reception on Apple Silicon is going to be lukewarm at best.
[+] [-] mgiampapa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mk_stjames|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rattray|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EVADKN|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rimintil|3 years ago|reply
https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloa...
[+] [-] lloeki|3 years ago|reply
Upon first launch, it'll prompt you to either enter a Pro license, try Pro for 30 days, or go straight to Player (still requires a free license key, obtained via registration).
[0]: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/fusion-evaluation.htm...
[+] [-] antipaul|3 years ago|reply
I gave up after 45 minutes... They want so much information/cookies/tracking but even after changing browsers and (temporarily) disabling all security/privacy, I couldn't download.
[+] [-] lostlogin|3 years ago|reply
Every time anyone in the office had to go on their website, everyone knew from the groans, moans and thumps.
It’s an abomination.
[+] [-] rjzzleep|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perbu|3 years ago|reply
And it can be installed through a brew cask.
[+] [-] sourcd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] irusensei|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] faeriechangling|3 years ago|reply
There’s too many issues around ARM support and the fact that other Linux and Windows machines generally won’t be running ARM. Apple Silicon also has expensive memory upgrades.
[+] [-] bombcar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ph_|3 years ago|reply
While I also have used Parallels, I just find VMware the solution which works best with me. One of the features of course was to be able to run modern Linux kernels without the needs of installing custom drivers as the necessary drivers where part of the Linux kernel. Parallels requires drivers which often where quite a bit behind the Fedora releases.
[+] [-] 2muchcoffeeman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonjackson|3 years ago|reply
I run a NixOS VM on my Macbook Pro, its transformed the way I develop. Checkout Hashicorp founder's NixOS setup here https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config
[+] [-] e40|3 years ago|reply
It's clear that VMware has hampered their ability to support their products (bugs and time to get this release out).
It's disappointing, because I like the UI of VMware more than Parallels (yes, probably because I used VMware for many years).
[+] [-] tzs|3 years ago|reply
That's assuming that I decide that I actually need such a product. Most of my use of VMWare Fusion on my Intel Mac is to run Linux VMs. I recently have switched to using Docker for that.
The only real snag was that I want services running in a Docker container to be reachable from Mac processes on the same port they would be on when deployed on a real server somewhere. E.g., if I've got a server that would be foo.com when live on a real server that I'm testing locally in a container, I want it to appear at some_ip:443 on my Mac, not on something like localhost:8443 that Docker maps to port 443 in the container.
That turned out to be not too difficult to deal with by using Wireguard. Specifically, Wireguard between the Linux VM that Docker Mac creates to run containers and the Mac.
If Docker Mac works as well on Apple Silicon I might be able to just stick with that and not need either VMWare or Parallels.
[+] [-] scrlk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianlevesque|3 years ago|reply
> For Graphics, Fusion 13 sports OpenGL 4.3 in Windows and Linux VMs on Intel, and in Linux VMs on Apple Silicon.
> On Intel, Windows continues to enjoy DirectX 11 graphics, and Fusion continues to support eGPU devices for incredible performance using some of the fastest GPU’s available.
> On Apple Silicon, Fusion can deliver OpenGL 4.3 with blazing fast 3D hardware acceleration to arm-based Linux virtual machines with Linux kernel 5.19 or greater.
So if I am reading this correctly, Windows on Apple Silicon doesn't have accelerated 3D at all? And even on Intel they are 10 full years behind with no support for DirectX 12.
I guess this is what happens six years after firing the entire team, once you can no longer coast on past innovations. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/vmwar...
[+] [-] nottorp|3 years ago|reply
On my end I've tried Parallels but my use case involves a lot of passing USB devices to a Windows or Linux VM and VMWare has been much better for that.
Although... the point is moot now. I bought a new amd box for running the x86 stuff, in preparation to moving my OS X machine to Mx when I feel brave enough.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yug|3 years ago|reply
Thank God I have backups to revert to.
[+] [-] ngcc_hk|3 years ago|reply
recovery, reset on csr then reboot delete old boot camp very small link (<100mb) and do a new boot camp vm and go back to recovery and enable csr Reboot
But is to true for other vm?
[+] [-] real-dino|3 years ago|reply
I tried VMWire fusion to run multiple browsers to get tickets for Glastonbury.
Are virtual machines ever not slow?
Running 9 virtual machines on an M1 mac, did not work...
I needed to be able to take over at any point, to enter the credit card details etc if successful, so puppeteer would not have been a good solution.
I think I need to rent multiple devices just for the day it seems. Chrome offers multiple profiles so I had 9 browsers, but you only get 60 refreshes per minute n an IP address. I would need to redirect some of the chrome instances, and have the screen real estate to handle it.
[+] [-] Demonsult|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|3 years ago|reply
For text/shell only Linux, I have been using https://github.com/lima-vm/lima for the last week and for what I needed (I wanted to setup picolisp and Emacs for some experiments) it was all good.
[+] [-] smnrchrds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cassianoleal|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foodstances|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 58028641|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nwpierce|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|3 years ago|reply
Crossover works surprisingly well for games, too.
[+] [-] sneak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] novok|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwanbix|3 years ago|reply
I wish their macbooks had mate screen, trackpoint, and were made of carbon
Like a thinkpad with the M2 inside.
[+] [-] Terretta|3 years ago|reply
after a couple years of matte, i can't stand iPad Pro screen w/o it
used to swear by trackpoint, it can't "gesture" or "multi-touch" tho, magic trackpad converges Macbook with iPad, so worth getting one for desktop Macs too
[+] [-] frellus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaxman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdze|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reiichiroh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexchantavy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sys_64738|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitterpatter|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubyist5eva|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blahgeek|3 years ago|reply