Will this project survive the ARM transition? E.g. will we be able to run macOS for ARM on x86 when Apple pull the plug on macOS x86?
OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#12I haven't got a Linux box to run this on, I run Linux via emulation.
Im running this on Windows though WSL 2. There's definitely a performance hit but other than that it works surprisingly well.
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#13Will this project survive the ARM transition? E.g. will we be able to run macOS for ARM on x86 when Apple pull the plug on macOS x86?
It's an insane amount of work, but people do try - https://twitter.com/JonathanAfek/status/1350000894784495617
I think we'll eventually get there. Simply because the M1 macs will upsize the pool of people working on it.
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#14I’m hoping to run macOS with QEMU/KVM with a project like this or another - does anyone know though if it is possible to pass through an intel integrated gpu (in a CPU only machine) to use for hardware acceleration?
I believe the most promising route is to not try to do passthrough but to use a "virtual" gpu, aka a paravirtualized device. Thanks to the contributions of an open-source developer*, virtio-gpu has been ported to macOS (it already works on Linux but not on Windows and soon it will be on macOS). Apple is also reportedly working on bringing better support for macOS virtualized environments [2]. It means that users will…
> without having to care about trying to do complicated things ([...] pci-passthrough of a second GPU)
Actually, GPU passthrough is quite simple: configure host Linux to assign a virtual driver to a secondary GPU on boot and configure QEMU to use that driver on guest boot[1]. If you buy a GPU that is natively supported by macOS (e.g., Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Pulse 4GB), you get 99% performance and 100% stability of a native Mac (not a single macOS/QEMU crash in years for me).
Moreover, if you configure your QEMU mouse/keyboard to use evdev[2] (event devices), you can game under macOS/QEMU or Windows/QEMU without any input lag.
[1] https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM/blob/master/notes.md#gpu-p... [2] https://passthroughpo.st/using-evdev-passthrough-seamless-vm...
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#15I’m hoping to run macOS with QEMU/KVM with a project like this or another - does anyone know though if it is possible to pass through an intel integrated gpu (in a CPU only machine) to use for hardware acceleration?
Not really pass through, no. If CONFIG_DRM_I915_GVT is enabled in your kernel, you can use Intel's graphics virtualization system... basically a virtio style virtual device that shares the GPU between VM and host. IMO this is way more convenient than real passthrough, where the device is only available either to the VM or the host. The downside is that you don't get full performance in the VM. "Intel GVT-g is a full…
Gvt-g is pretty much dead. New hardware e.g. Tiger Lake with Xe isn’t supported and it’s my understanding that Intel has no plans to support.
See the following link for supported devices.
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/bbf5c979011a099af5dc7...
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the most promising route is to not try to do passthrough but to use a "virtual" gpu, aka a paravirtualized device. Thanks to the contributions of an open-source developer*, virtio-gpu has been ported to macOS (it already works on Linux but not on Windows and soon it will be on macOS). Apple is also reportedly working on bringing better support for macOS virtualized environments [2]. It means that users will…
> without having to care about trying to do complicated things ([...] pci-passthrough of a second GPU) Actually, GPU passthrough is quite simple: configure host Linux to assign a virtual driver to a secondary GPU on boot and configure QEMU to use that driver on guest boot[1]. If you buy a GPU that is natively supported by macOS (e.g., Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Pulse 4GB), you get 99% performance and 100% stability of a…
By complicated, I mean that you have to modify your the default behavior of your host OS (which by default will grab any hardware) and pick a GPU that is supported by the guest OS. People with Nvidia GPUs cannot do that for macOS. Ideally, out-of-the-box, with a few clicks, most people including non-tech savy ones should be able to enjoy 3D acceleration in their VM, regardless of their host configuration.
Besides, in the long term, Apple is likely to drop support for AMD or Intel GPU in their OS (but yes, they might also drop support for virtio devices).
Yes, evdev is currently the best way to share your inputs devices to a VM, thank you for pointing that out (alas, it is only available in distributions with very recent virtualization-related packages).
In my (perhaps narrow) view: virtualization should be about making you less reliant on the underlying hardware. I wish that GPU manufacturers would agree on a common standard to allow users to split their beefy GPU into smaller parts (Intel is apparently dropping support for vfio-mdev (Intel GVT-d), adopting SR/IOV instead for their latest offerings. But SR/IOV is only available on professional models for AMD and Nvidia. In summary, there won't be a standard any time soon, leaving virtio-gpu as the sole hardware-agnostic contender)
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#17I’m hoping to run macOS with QEMU/KVM with a project like this or another - does anyone know though if it is possible to pass through an intel integrated gpu (in a CPU only machine) to use for hardware acceleration?
I believe the most promising route is to not try to do passthrough but to use a "virtual" gpu, aka a paravirtualized device. Thanks to the contributions of an open-source developer*, virtio-gpu has been ported to macOS (it already works on Linux but not on Windows and soon it will be on macOS). Apple is also reportedly working on bringing better support for macOS virtualized environments [2]. It means that users will…
Is there some info on virtio GPU for OSX development somewhere ?
I knew virtio support was happening but hadn't seen any info on the GPU bit.
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#18is there any way to run macOS on Hyper V ?
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> without having to care about trying to do complicated things ([...] pci-passthrough of a second GPU) Actually, GPU passthrough is quite simple: configure host Linux to assign a virtual driver to a secondary GPU on boot and configure QEMU to use that driver on guest boot[1]. If you buy a GPU that is natively supported by macOS (e.g., Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Pulse 4GB), you get 99% performance and 100% stability of a…
By complicated, I mean that you have to modify your the default behavior of your host OS (which by default will grab any hardware) and pick a GPU that is supported by the guest OS. People with Nvidia GPUs cannot do that for macOS. Ideally, out-of-the-box, with a few clicks, most people including non-tech savy ones should be able to enjoy 3D acceleration in their VM, regardless of their host configuration. Besides, in…
[deleted]
Re: OS X-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM
#20Will this project survive the ARM transition? E.g. will we be able to run macOS for ARM on x86 when Apple pull the plug on macOS x86?
It's an insane amount of work, but people do try - https://twitter.com/JonathanAfek/status/1350000894784495617 I think we'll eventually get there. Simply because the M1 macs will upsize the pool of people working on it.
The ARM CPU would still have to be emulated on x86_64, which would be ungodly slow.