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Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

khronokernel.com

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Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#11

Post by thomascountz »

tempest_ wrote: post #6
RestartKernel wrote: post #3

This is a really cool article, but the existence of such an arbitrary limit on any serious development platform is weird.

Has apple been a serious development platform in the last 20 years? I know a lot of devs like apple hardware because it is premium but OSX has always been "almost linux" controlled by a company that cares more about itunes then it does the people using their hardware to develop.

Anything being developed for the Apple ecosystem requires use of the Apple development platform. Maybe the scope could be called "unserious," but the scale cannot be ignored.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#12

Post by amelius »

tempest_ wrote: post #6
RestartKernel wrote: post #3

This is a really cool article, but the existence of such an arbitrary limit on any serious development platform is weird.

Has apple been a serious development platform in the last 20 years? I know a lot of devs like apple hardware because it is premium but OSX has always been "almost linux" controlled by a company that cares more about itunes then it does the people using their hardware to develop.

It is a weird situation. Apple products are consumer products but they make us use them as development hardware because there is no other way to make software for those products.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#13

Post by jonhohle »

tempest_ wrote: post #6
RestartKernel wrote: post #3

This is a really cool article, but the existence of such an arbitrary limit on any serious development platform is weird.

Has apple been a serious development platform in the last 20 years? I know a lot of devs like apple hardware because it is premium but OSX has always been "almost linux" controlled by a company that cares more about itunes then it does the people using their hardware to develop.

For me at least, not being Linux is a feature. Linux has always been “almost Unix” to the point where now it has become its own thing for better or worse. OS X was never trying to be Linux. It would be better if we still had a few more commercial POSIX implementations.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#14

Post by tempest_ »

thomascountz wrote: post #11
tempest_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has apple been a serious development platform in the last 20 years? I know a lot of devs like apple hardware because it is premium but OSX has always been "almost linux" controlled by a company that cares more about itunes then it does the people using their hardware to develop.

Anything being developed for the Apple ecosystem requires use of the Apple development platform. Maybe the scope could be called "unserious," but the scale cannot be ignored.

I am aware.

However having used Xcode at some point 10 years ago my belief is that the app ecosystem exists in spite of that and that people would never choose this given the choice.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#15

Post by tempest_ »

jonhohle wrote: post #13
tempest_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has apple been a serious development platform in the last 20 years? I know a lot of devs like apple hardware because it is premium but OSX has always been "almost linux" controlled by a company that cares more about itunes then it does the people using their hardware to develop.

For me at least, not being Linux is a feature. Linux has always been “almost Unix” to the point where now it has become its own thing for better or worse. OS X was never trying to be Linux. It would be better if we still had a few more commercial POSIX implementations.

That is fair but in my experience most devs are targeting linux servers not BSD(or any other flavour) which is helped by OSX. If OSX was linux derived it would suit them just as well.

edit: I suppose I should also note the vast majority of people developing on mac books (in my experience anyway) are actually targeting chrome.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#16

Post by benoau »

kylec wrote: post #2

This is a very silly restriction, at least to apply uniformly to all Macs. I think if you buy a more powerful Mac they should let you virtualize more Mac instances. Like an M5 maybe limit to 2, but maybe let an M5 Pro do 4 and an M5 Max do 8 or something.

Why should they impose a limit at all? Your hardware is a natural limit, you'll stop of your own accord when you reach its thresholds.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#17

Post by naikrovek »

benoau wrote: post #16
kylec wrote: post #2

This is a very silly restriction, at least to apply uniformly to all Macs. I think if you buy a more powerful Mac they should let you virtualize more Mac instances. Like an M5 maybe limit to 2, but maybe let an M5 Pro do 4 and an M5 Max do 8 or something.

Why should they impose a limit at all? Your hardware is a natural limit, you'll stop of your own accord when you reach its thresholds.

They are likely scared of people who would run MacOS virtual desktop farms, without also buying an appropriate number of Apple machines.

That’s what I would be worried about if my primary source of income was hardware sales.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#18

Post by ryandrake »

naikrovek wrote: post #17
benoau wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they impose a limit at all? Your hardware is a natural limit, you'll stop of your own accord when you reach its thresholds.

They are likely scared of people who would run MacOS virtual desktop farms, without also buying an appropriate number of Apple machines. That’s what I would be worried about if my primary source of income was hardware sales.

Apple had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of virtualization and the idea of macOS running on anything besides "metal built by Apple." They've been pretty clear for decades that they only care about customers who buy Apple aluminum and silicon.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#19

Post by RestartKernel »

tempest_ wrote: post #15
jonhohle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least, not being Linux is a feature. Linux has always been “almost Unix” to the point where now it has become its own thing for better or worse. OS X was never trying to be Linux. It would be better if we still had a few more commercial POSIX implementations.

That is fair but in my experience most devs are targeting linux servers not BSD(or any other flavour) which is helped by OSX. If OSX was linux derived it would suit them just as well. edit: I suppose I should also note the vast majority of people developing on mac books (in my experience anyway) are actually targeting chrome.

> I suppose I should also note the vast majority of people developing on mac books (in my experience anyway) are actually targeting chrome.

Point taken. Most developers probably make do with Linux containers rather than MacOS VMs.

Re: Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit (2023)

#20

Post by jonhohle »

tempest_ wrote: post #15
jonhohle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least, not being Linux is a feature. Linux has always been “almost Unix” to the point where now it has become its own thing for better or worse. OS X was never trying to be Linux. It would be better if we still had a few more commercial POSIX implementations.

That is fair but in my experience most devs are targeting linux servers not BSD(or any other flavour) which is helped by OSX. If OSX was linux derived it would suit them just as well. edit: I suppose I should also note the vast majority of people developing on mac books (in my experience anyway) are actually targeting chrome.

Heterogeneity is the feature. The Linux ecosystem is better off for it (systemd, Wayland, dconf, epoll, inotify are all based on ideas that were in OS X first) and not being beholden to Linux is a competitive advantage for Apple everyone wins.
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