Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Virtualization Framework

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 127 posts

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#51

Post by smcleod »

tiffanyh wrote: post #49
_joel wrote: post #6

Has there been a significant development? Been using it with https://mac.getutm.app/ for a while

Does this compete with Virtualbox, VMWare, etc?

Does virtualbox compete with anything? Every time I've used it it's dog slow and / or has network issues.

UTM doesn't have as many settings as VMWare Fusion but stability and performance wise it's on par. It's also open source and free.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#52

Post by xrd »

greggsy wrote: post #50
xrd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay for parallels, right? I always try to find something that's fully open so I'm able to control my destiny fully. That's a bit ironic trying to run on apple hardware, but if the entire stack above the bottom layer is open then I can easily switch hardware of course.

That’s noble, but open source doesn’t always deliver the same benefits of COTS products, such as stability and support. That trumps ideology for many people and businesses.

Definitely true. But I also feel like open source stuff is more honest about the capabilities. That's important to me and often trumps the marketing effort by a commercial effort.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#53

Post by wslh »

_joel wrote: post #6

Has there been a significant development? Been using it with https://mac.getutm.app/ for a while

I understand that you can use it with https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run... ? What is the difference or improvement about using UTM (macOS newbie here :-) )

In the UTM page it says "Under the hood of UTM is QEMU, a decades old..." so are we talking about the same thing as Apple Virtualization Framework. I am confused qbout the QEMU mention.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#54

Post by jbergstroem »

infosecb wrote: post #35

VirtualBuddy is a great open-source project that takes advantage of this framework: https://github.com/insidegui/VirtualBuddy

Orbstack is a relatively new player that offers both VMs and containerization on top of the virtualization framework: https://orbstack.dev

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#55

Post by ztrww »

smcleod wrote: post #51
tiffanyh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this compete with Virtualbox, VMWare, etc?

Does virtualbox compete with anything? Every time I've used it it's dog slow and / or has network issues. UTM doesn't have as many settings as VMWare Fusion but stability and performance wise it's on par. It's also open source and free.

But it doesn’t support GPU passthrough? Which seems like a pretty big deal for many uses cases.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#56

Post by matthew-wegner »

antrod wrote: post #30

Please God let them use this to virtualize macOS inside iPadOS. Not as a daily driver but for the occasional use of a full desktop OS (when plugged into a keyboard/mouse). Then I could stop traveling with two devices once and for all.

I think more likely is that xrOS will use this to virtualize both iPadOS and macOS. Initial rumors are that it can run iPad apps out of the box...

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#57

Post by ch_123 »

detourdog wrote: post #13
aa-jv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I thought this was being done to pump us up for new Mac Pro hardware that might be on the horizon, but then I wasn't sure, but now I'm also still not sure it isn't .. ;) But, regardless, the subject of using a Mac to host a plethora of different platforms (in my case, for build-server duties) is indeed a fascinating subject. If I can get my target/builds set up on the next Mac Pro, whatever that is going to…

I think this is being done because the Mach microkernel was designed to run multiple OS's at the same time. I think Apple finally has enough developers to start pushing into new areas such as a framework to advantage Mach.

Mach was designed to run multiple OS interfaces in the same way that Windows NT was - multiple compatibility layers on top of a common kernel (e.g. WSL1). What is being discussed here is virtualization, for which Mach is no more suited than Linux, Windows, Sys V Unix etc.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#58

Post by bonzini »

wslh wrote: post #53
_joel wrote: post #6

Has there been a significant development? Been using it with https://mac.getutm.app/ for a while

I understand that you can use it with https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run... ? What is the difference or improvement about using UTM (macOS newbie here :-) ) In the UTM page it says "Under the hood of UTM is QEMU, a decades old..." so are we talking about the same thing as Apple Virtualization Framework. I am confused qbout the QEMU mention.

There are two frameworks, Hypervisor.framework which is a low level abstraction of the processor's virtuazionation functionality, and Virtualization.framework which is basically a QEMU implementation.

Re: Apple Virtualization Framework

#59

Post by detourdog »

saagarjha wrote: post #31
detourdog wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mach is down below. This is what Mach is for the BSD that was originally part of the DARPA deliverable was just to prove that Mach could run on OS.

There's not much down below it. It calls into the Hypervisor APIs, which directly touch platform virtualization features.

We are obviously talking past each other. On MacOS Mach provides all the resources. Mach was designed to abstract Operating systems from the underlaying hardware. It could also run more then one operating system at time since that was normal expectation.
Post reply on HN