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

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

#171

Post by gambiting »

saagarjha wrote: post #163
gambiting wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compile a tool we use, send it to another developer, they can't open it without going through system settings because the OS thinks it's unsafe. There is no blanket easy way to disable this behaviour. We also inject custom dlibs into clang during compilation and starting with Tahoe that started to fail - we discovered that it's because of SIP(system integrity protection). We reached out to apple, got the answer tha…

> We also inject custom dlibs into clang during compilation I am curious what you are doing

We use Unreal Build Accelerator which injects a custom dlib into clang to intercept the compilation process and distribute it to worker machines.

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

#173

Post by musicale »

leptons wrote: post #123
stingraycharles wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Apple has been extremely restrictive about virtual machines in all kinds of ways, e.g. the minimum terms anyone is able to lease out a VM or Mac to someone else is 24h, making cloud-like workloads practically impossible. For some reason, Apple really doesn’t like virtual machines, and it’s much more intentional than just “probably multiple users”. It’s extremely frustrating.

Frustrating for you, hilarious for me. I had no idea they had hobbled MacOS in this way. It doesn't surprise me at all really, and it's pretty ridiculous. I'm not sure why people keep giving Apple their money, especially tech-savvy people that would want to run VMs.

The limit is for macOS running in a VM (which is mainly useful for developing iOS and macOS apps, for example cloud-based testing and CI/CD workflows.)

Most developers build web- and server-based systems that use Linux VMs as back-ends.

Most containers used for development are Linux containers, which also run in a Linux VM.

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

#174

Post by saagarjha »

gambiting wrote: post #171
saagarjha wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We also inject custom dlibs into clang during compilation I am curious what you are doing

We use Unreal Build Accelerator which injects a custom dlib into clang to intercept the compilation process and distribute it to worker machines.

I’m curious why this needs to be code injection and not, like, a shell script?

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

#175

Post by naikrovek »

stephenr wrote: post #161
moondev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine buying a mac studio with 500+ GB of memory and being limited to 2 vms.

You realise you can run VMs for any other os right? It's a limit on running macOS not a limit on running VMs.

Yes we all realize that.

It’s MacOS VMs that we want to run.

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

#176

Post by naikrovek »

leptons wrote: post #125
naikrovek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that is what I was going to do until I discovered the two VM limit. I was building a MacOS GitHub Actions farm, or rather, looking into it. I had written most of the code but my inertia screeched to a halt when I discovered the two VM limit for MacOS VMs.

You are not Apple's target market, and never will be. They don't care what you want to do with the hardware you own.

No kidding.

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

#177

Post by stephenr »

naikrovek wrote: post #175
stephenr wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realise you can run VMs for any other os right? It's a limit on running macOS not a limit on running VMs.

Yes we all realize that. It’s MacOS VMs that we want to run.

Maybe I should have used the same dismissive tone.

Imagine thinking everyone who buys a Mac and runs VMs wants to run heaps of macOS VMs.

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

#178

Post by array_key_first »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #88
array_key_first wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All operating systems have bugs, and Apple doesn't have the QA it used to have. MacOS has basically been exclusively trending down in quality for a while now, while Linux continues to get better. What you have to realize is that what Linux distros are doing is inherently more complicated. They're making a general purpose operating system intended to run on every computer. Apple is making one operating system intended…

You're not wrong about the downwards trend in quality but we're still a long ways off from macOS or even Windows having the same level of QA issues that Linux does, on a regular desktop system.

Windows basically barely works, and I would know because I use it daily at work. Core operating system components crash regularly. My task bar crashes a couple times a day, and takes explorer down with it. Sometimes the start menu just won't open for a while. And also teams kills itself silently, and then I miss notifications because I'm not pocket watching the task bar.

At this point, Linux is very far ahead of windows in terms of QA. And other things, like aesthetics and intuitive UI. I mean, Microsoft has like 5 different application styles across their own built in apps.

I think a lot of people have just not used KDE or even gnome in a while. They're pretty good. Consistent, intuitive, stable.

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

#179

Post by colechristensen »

leptons wrote: post #167
marmarama wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can do it technically, but then you have a licensing compliance issue, so no reputable business will do it. You can run x86 macOS VMs in Windows or Linux too with a little bit of technical trickery, but again, you end up with a license issue, so no-one reputable does it.

I've never really understood how Apple can let people download MacOS for free, and then tell them where and how they can run it - only on Apple's hardware. If I download a copy of Windows or any software ever written, I can run it on any hardware that exists that can run it. But somehow Apple gets to dictate to people where and how they can run freely available software that anyone can download?

You struggle with the concept of licenses?

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

#180

Post by Melatonic »

jonnrb wrote: post #97
JoshTriplett wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make more sense except they don't even have an option to pay for it .

Yes they do. It's called "another Mac". And I'm not even being snarky here: I legitimately think someone at Apple thought this through and said "yeah if they need more than 2 VMs running at the same time, there are probably multiple users and they can each get their own Mac".

If they licensed or built their own microVMs they could offer it as an addon product and solve most of these issues without full macOS instances
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