[HN Gopher] Why are Apple Silicon VMs so different?
___________________________________________________________________
Why are Apple Silicon VMs so different?
Author : ingve
Score : 256 points
Date : 2023-12-29 10:29 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| tbenst wrote:
| Does anyone know the state of running Windows / Linux x86-64
| virtualization on Apple Silicon? This article is super
| interesting but dances around the most important application for
| VMs on Mac.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Very slow using qemu. You can run arm64 Linux and run x86_x64
| apps inside using Rosetta, if your virtual machine uses
| Virtualization.Framework (does not work with qemu, AFAIK). I
| suppose you can do the same with arm64 Windows and Microsoft
| x86_64 translation technology, but not really sure.
| rincebrain wrote:
| You can use qemu -accel hvf.
| deergomoo wrote:
| You can use Rosetta to run x86 Linux binaries with good
| performance under a virtualised ARM Linux [0], but if you want
| to run fully x86 Windows or Linux you'll need to emulate, not
| virtualise. It's possible, but there's a big performance hit as
| you might expect.
|
| [0]
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
| kamilner wrote:
| I'm not sure how OrbStack does it, but it can run a fully x64
| Linux using Rosetta with quite good performance.
| AkshitGarg wrote:
| IIRC that runs a x86_64 userland (using Rosetta) on a arm64
| kernel.
| kamilner wrote:
| Interesting. uname -a reports x86_64, and lscpu also
| reports x86_64, although perhaps that's just the kernel
| being patched to lie about the architecture.
| timenova wrote:
| YMMV, but from my own experiments, on an M1 Macbook Air, it did
| not work well for me. I was trying to compile an Elixir
| codebase on x86-64 Alpine Linux. Elixir does not have cross-
| compiling. I tried it in a Docker container, and in a Linux VM
| using OrbStack. Both approaches fail, as it just segfaults,
| even on the first `mix compile` of a blank project.
|
| This problem does not exist in ARM containers or VMs, as the
| same project compiles perfectly in an ARM Alpine Linux
| container/VM.
|
| It's definitely not plug-and-play for all scenarios. If anyone
| knows workarounds, let me know.
| cschmatzler wrote:
| That's an underlying QEMU bug, which is used by Lima [1]. Add
| `ENV ERL_FLAGS="+JPperf true"` to your Dockerfile and it will
| build just fine cross platform. The flag just changes some
| things during build time and won't affect runtime
| performance.
|
| [1] https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/1034
| timenova wrote:
| Thanks. I can confirm that this works. Compiling a new
| project no longer segfaults, and `Mix.install()` works in
| `iex` too.
| plufz wrote:
| HN just turned into Stack Overflow. :)
| giantrobot wrote:
| In that case can this whole thread be deleted and
| replaced by a link to an almost completely unrelated
| issue that used some of the same English words in the
| description? Just trying to get the full effect here.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Elixir does not have cross-compiling.
|
| Elixir compiles to beam files, like Erlang, right?
|
| I was pretty sure beam files are bytecode and not platform
| specific?
| timenova wrote:
| You're right that Elixir source code compiles to BEAM
| bytecode, however, if you run `mix release`, you need to
| ensure that the release runs on the same target OS and
| OpenSSL version. My aim was to build a `mix release` on my
| M1 Mac to run it on an x86-64 server.
|
| From the docs [0]:
|
| > Once a release is assembled, it can be packaged and
| deployed to a target, as long as the target runs on the
| same operating system (OS) distribution and version as the
| machine running the mix release command.
|
| The `mix release` command outputs a directory containing
| your compiled Elixir bytecode files, along with the ERTS
| (Erlang Runtime System). The ERTS it bundles is only for
| your host machine's architecture. Another point to remember
| is that some dependencies use native NIFs, which means they
| need to be cross-compiled too. Hence it's not as easy as
| replacing the ERTS folder with one for another architecture
| in most circumstances.
|
| There's a project that aims to alleviate these issues
| called Burrito [1], but when I tried it, I had mixed
| success with it, and decided not to use it for my
| deployment approach. It looks like Burrito has matured
| since then, so it would be worth taking a look into if you
| need to cross-compile.
|
| The gist is, while possible, its significantly harder to
| get an Elixir release running on another architecture than
| say is the case for Go.
|
| [0] https://hexdocs.pm/mix/1.16.0/Mix.Tasks.Release.html
| [1] https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito
| thejosh wrote:
| For anything that doesn't need a UI, you're FAR better off
| having some remote server than trying to emulate, it's far to
| slow for ARM64<>x86-64 in both directions..
|
| Many things are just so much easier with a remote
| server/workstation somewhere than trying to deal with VM
| shenanigans.
|
| ARM64 visualised on the otherhand (Linux works great, macos
| seems good(?), haven't tried Windows) with UTM is pretty
| great.
| timenova wrote:
| I absolutely agree! I finally went in that direction. The
| only reason I was trying this whole ordeal was because I
| was trying to get some private dependencies included in the
| build without going through the whole hassle of git
| submodules. Now I just include those deps as a path include
| in mix.exs. Not a great solution I know...
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I've been able to do this (build x86/ubuntu targeted elixir)
| with UTM on my M1 Mac. It ain't fast, that's for sure. But it
| works. Which is interesting because sibling responses to your
| Lima experience claim it's because of a qemu "bug", but utm
| runs qemu as well.
| donatj wrote:
| Your mileage may vary, but I've been quite happy running x86-64
| software in an ARM build of Windows 11 in UTM.
|
| Nothing graphical or all that intensive though, just some
| productivity tools I can't live without.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| What hardware are you running this on out of curiosity?
| donatj wrote:
| M1 Macbook Pro
| tecleandor wrote:
| For Linux, and if you only need to run CLI tools, I've been
| very happy with Lima [0]. It runs x86-64 and ARM VMs using
| QEMU, but can also run ARM VMs using vz [1] (Apple
| virtualization framework[2]) that is very performant. Also,
| along with the project colima [3] you can easily start
| Docker/Podman/Kubernetes instances, totally substituting Docker
| Desktop for me.
|
| For desktop environments (Linux/Windows) I've used UTM [4] with
| mixed success. Although it's been almost a year since last time
| I used it, so maybe it runs better now
|
| There's also Parallels, and people say it's a good product, but
| it's around USD/EUR 100, and I haven't tested it as I don't
| have that need.
|
| And there's VMWare Fusion but... who likes VMWare? ;)
| [0] - https://lima-vm.io [1] - https://lima-
| vm.io/docs/config/vmtype/#vz [2] - https://developer.appl
| e.com/documentation/virtualization?language=objc [3] -
| https://lima-vm.io/docs/faq/colima/ [4] -
| https://mac.getutm.app/ [5] -
| https://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/
| cangeroo wrote:
| Parallels has a bad desktop user experience using Linux
| because of poor support for continuous scrolling. Lots of
| users have complained on their forums for years, but they
| refuse to do anything about it. I bought it for one year, and
| regretted the experience. It works well with Windows though.
|
| Generally, the experience with MacOS is mediocre thanks to
| Apple and their Virtualization Framework, with many basic
| features missing for years.
| a_vanderbilt wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the continuous scrolling? I've
| actually never noticed anything off about the scrolling.
| deaddodo wrote:
| This is ironic, considering Parallels was originally an
| Apple first product designed specifically for virtualizing
| Windows and running it's apps "seamlessly" alongside native
| Mac ones.
| kergonath wrote:
| Why is it ironic? The parent says that it works well with
| Windows, which you say is the original use case. Linux
| has nothing to do with this.
| kamilner wrote:
| I regularly use Orbstack to develop for x64 Linux (including
| kernel development). It works transparently as an x64 linux
| command line that uses Rosetta under the hood, so performance
| is reasonably good.
|
| It can also run docker containers, apparently faster than the
| normal docker client, although I haven't used that feature much
| so I'm not sure.
| selimnairb wrote:
| I run full AMD64 containers using Docker Desktop, which uses
| Rosetta under the hood. On my M1 Pro they were a bit slow
| (maybe 25% slower than my work laptop, which is a 12th gen.
| i9), but good enough in general. I have since upgraded to an M3
| Max and AMD64 VMs seem to be a lot faster, maybe even faster
| than my 12th gen. i9. I really hope Apple doesn't get rid of
| Rosetta support in VMs, ever. It's just too useful.
| nxobject wrote:
| I wish there was a good GUI-based solution for Windows
| emulation via Rosetta. My use case isn't development - it's
| running software with an x64-only proprietary driver! (The
| Oculus remote link drivers, FWIW.) Fusion and Parallels don't
| have that feature, so I'm wondering whether there are technical
| difficulties/blockers there.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| ARM Windows runs well with Parallels. And it can run x86 apps.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Yes, this is the best way to do it if possible in my
| experience. I use some fairly heavy x86_64 apps in the Arm
| for Windows in Parallels, using Windows' translation system
| (rosetta 2 equivalent), and it's been quite good.
|
| Trying to emulate the whole x86_64 version of an OS (I tried
| some Docker images that only came in x86 before finding
| instructions to rebuild them on the ARM base OS) has been
| super slow on the other hand. This is on a quite decent M2
| Pro.
| cangeroo wrote:
| Some x86 apps refuse to run on ARM, having platform detection
| built-in to their installer.
| zerkten wrote:
| If it's an MSI-based installer, it's pretty easy to edit
| the MSI with Orca to remove the check. This is similar to
| how you'd get client software installs unblocked on Windows
| Server. In other cases, there are often ways to trick it,
| but it's contextual.
| dada78641 wrote:
| My personal experience is that Windows 11 for ARM runs
| extremely well on Parallels. It includes an emulation layer for
| x86 apps that's completely invisible and just works. I can even
| still run Cakewalk, a program originally from the 90s, on my M1
| Mac to edit midi files.
|
| With that being said, this is just my view as someone who uses
| simple consumer oriented programs, and I'm not sure how well
| it'll work for more serious purposes.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| Have you tried any Windows games on Apple Silicon? What kinds
| of Windows apps do you tend to run? I've used the macOS
| version of World of Warcraft on my '20 Mac Mini (16GB RAM)
| and even with utilities that adjust the mouse acceleration
| curve, I still find game play clunky. I was hoping I could
| run WoW under a VM and have it be somewhat performant.
| rogual wrote:
| Not OP, but I use Parallels on M2 and gaming is a bit hit-
| or-miss. I'd say maybe 80% of games work flawlessly, and
| 20% have some sort of issue ranging from the annoying to
| the unplayable.
|
| For non-gaming, Parallels is extremely solid. I use Visual
| Studio and various productivity apps and they all work
| perfectly -- although Parallels is enshittified scumware
| that pops up ads at every available opportunity, so if that
| kind of thing bothers you, it's worth considering it before
| buying.
| plufz wrote:
| Ads about what? Upgrading to a more expensive tier or
| like third party ads?
| solardev wrote:
| For gaming, you want to use Crossover or the FOSS Whisky
| app. Parallels only runs Arm Windows which then emulates
| x86. This is much much slower than using Wine to translate
| system calls and Apple's Game Porting Toolkit to handle the
| Vulkan or DirectX graphics. Crossover and Whisky take care
| of the internals of those for you. Give those a shot, I
| think you'll find it much better than a full VM. In my
| experience some games do run better this way than the MacOS
| versions, though that's usually because the Mac client
| wasn't compiled for Apple Silicon and so Rosetta is
| emulating. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure WOW is already
| Apple Silicon native, so you probably won't get better
| performance this way.
|
| Crossover is paid but has better compatibility:
| https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/ (or see
| https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility for compatible
| games)
|
| Whisky is free, and will work just as well for games it
| supports, but has compatibility with fewer games (no
| official list, so you just have to download it and try
| yourself): https://github.com/Whisky-App/Whisky
|
| For the mouse stuff, try a USB mouse if you're not already
| using one, combined with
| https://github.com/ther0n/UnnaturalScrollWheels to disable
| acceleration and fix the scroll wheel.
|
| That works really well for me to get a Windows-like mouse
| curve.
|
| TLDR skip the emulation and go for translation layers via
| Crossover, Whisky, and GPT. It'll be much faster. The mouse
| thing is separate and has nothing to do with the graphics
| layer.
|
| ------
|
| Personally though, I'd just pay $20 a month for Geforce
| Now. It is much much faster than even the highest end Mac.
| I don't think WOW is on there, but for supported games,
| it's a phenomenal experience... sold my 3080 desktop and
| replaced it with GFN on my Macbook. It's fantastic.
|
| Supported games: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-
| now/games/
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| What is the bandwidth requirement I wonder. Seems too
| cheap to be true ... must have some other catch. Latency
| as well?
| solardev wrote:
| For GeForce Now? Not much:
|
| From https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/system-
| reqs/:
|
| - 15 Mbps for 720p @ 60FPS
|
| - 25 Mbps for 1080p
|
| - Up to 35 Mbps for 4k/120 FPS
|
| Input latency is there, yes, but it's not too bad
| especially if you turn on Nvidia Reflex and use the
| hardware cursor. Totally unnoticeable in many games. For
| first-person shooters it's definitely noticeable, but IMO
| still playable as long as you're not doing it
| competitively. I play shooters on it from time to time...
| and put it this way, I would much rather do that (on max
| graphics) and deal with the minor input lag, than to try
| to get them running on my Mac, all to get super low
| graphics with low draw distance, etc.
|
| It's never going to beat a 4090 on your desk, but for
| $20/mo...? It's an incredible value.
|
| I don't know that there really is a "catch" beyond basic
| network principles/limitations. Game streaming has been
| developed for more than a decade now... when OnLive first
| came out, the technology (home internet and hardware
| encoding) wasn't quite there. Now 35Mbps is commonplace,
| Nvidia has hardware encoding in all their cards, AND they
| control the entire stack of their data center like no one
| else can. Stadia's failure was IMO a Google management
| problem more than any technical limitation. GeForce Now
| is a much much better service, both using your existing
| Steam library and supporting way more games.
|
| The pricing does seem really good, especially compared to
| Shadow.tech (where you rent a whole gaming VM with a 3070
| Ti for $50/mo, but can run anything you want) or AirGPU
| (similar service). But the games-as-a-service platforms
| like Amazon Luna, Xbox Cloud Streaming, and PS Plus are
| all comparably priced ($10-$20/mo). There are other third
| party services like Boosteroid too. Cloud gaming is a
| maturing technology that's largely already "there", in my
| experience (have tried nearly all of them over the last
| 10+ years).
|
| I think Nvidia is uniquely positioned as the only company
| in this space who can provide the graphics cards first-
| party instead of needing to buy them from, well, Nvidia.
| It's possible that the current pricing is a loss leader,
| but they've already raised the prices from the Founders
| pricing they had a few years ago, and it's still not too
| bad. It's not like Nvidia is hurting for cash anyway. My
| main fear is not that there's a "catch", but that they'll
| gradually move out of the gaming segment and focus on AI.
|
| In the meantime, while it lasts, GeForce Now really is
| wonderfully, uh, game-changing :)
|
| ----------
|
| Edit: PS they have a free tier, and you can even use it
| in a browser tab, no client download needed. That's
| enough to give you a taste for free, no commitment. If
| you decide you like it, the Ultimate plan is very much
| worth it, and the desktop (or mobile) clients offer
| slightly better UX than the browser tab and higher
| resolutions.
| swozey wrote:
| When I first got it I tested a few games on my 2022 M1 Max
| 64GB 16" MBP both natively and in Windows ARM.
|
| The only one that I remember is Crusader Kings II. It has a
| native MacOS version which I tried and it ran pretty rough.
| Very, very choppy on the map. I didn't tweak any graphics
| settings from the defaults and put no effort into making it
| run better, FWIW.
|
| Next, I ran it via Windows ARM in Parallels. Now that I'm
| writing this I have no idea what I did to test it. I feel
| like it just ran but I don't think I did anything specific
| to make an x86 process run on ARM. Maybe Windows ARM does
| that for you, I forget.
|
| Anyway, it ran really well. Absolutely much, much better
| than the native app. It felt completely smooth navigating
| the map, etc. I did NOT play it in a big game that lasted
| hundreds of years. I probably did 5 turns, mostly checking
| to see how smooth scrolling the map and the UI/UX stuff
| was.
|
| I have a 4090'd gaming desktop so it wasn't a big deal to
| me to be able to game on the mac which is why I put as much
| effort into this as you can see. lmao.
|
| It's amazing at everything else!
| solardev wrote:
| > I feel like it just ran but I don't think I did
| anything specific to make an x86 process run on ARM.
| Maybe Windows ARM does that for you, I forget.
|
| Yeah, Microsoft doesn't get nearly enough credit for
| this, but Windows for Arm just automagically emulates x86
| for you! Kinda like Rosetta, but for Windows.
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-
| arm-x8...
| fulafel wrote:
| The article is about virtualization, not emulating x86-64, so
| I'd disagree it's dancing around that. (Also, Windows and Linux
| have their own x86 emulations - if you boot virtualized
| Windows/ARM or Linux/ARM, you can get to the native emulation
| functionalities)
| outcoldman wrote:
| I do my work on Apple Silicon laptops since the first M1 came
| out.
|
| I use Docker Desktop that can run for me amd64 images as well.
|
| I do run Splunk in it (which is a very enterprise product,
| written mostly in C++), I was so shocked to see that I was able
| to run it on Rosetta pretty much from day 1. Splunk worked on
| macOS with Rosetta from day 1, but had some issues in Docker
| running under QEMU, now Docker uses Rosetta for Linux, which
| allows me to run Splunk for Linux in Docker as well.
|
| I use RedHat CodeReady Containers (local OpenShift), which
| works great as well.
|
| And I use Parallels to run mostly headless Linux to run
| Kubernetes. And sometimes Windows just to look at it.
|
| In a first two years of Apple Silicon architecture I definitely
| had to find some workaround to make things work. Right now I am
| 100% rely only on Apple Silicon, and deliver my software to
| large enterprise companies who use it on amd64/arm64
| architectures.
| maldev wrote:
| I'm a big windows guy, pretty much windows only. Recently
| bought a macbook. I love windows so much that I set up my shell
| on the mac to be powershell and use Windows Terminal to SSH
| into the mac.
|
| I'm REALLY happy with parallel desktop. It runs any
| productivity or programming app I've needed. It also makes it
| as if it's running natively on the mac, you can just open up
| some windows app and it pops up like a mac one. It works
| amazingly fast, and I can develop both x64, x32, ARM apps in
| visual studio on my VM. Games don't work because of DRM, but I
| just use Parsec to stream my desktop if I want to game anyways,
| so it doesn't affect my workflow. And any game I would actually
| play while traveling is on the mac natively.
|
| For linux I only emulate Kali, and it works good, I love how
| the VM's pop up as a "Virtual desktop" so I can side swipe it,
| but linux vm's don't have the native integration like Windows.
| Once nested virtualization is enabled, i'll probably stick it
| in WSL, I personally don't use Linux that much since I think
| it's shit.
|
| The only downside is some asshole at Apple won't put in nested
| virtualization for the VM's, even though M2 and M3 have support
| for it on linux.
| freedomben wrote:
| If you don't mind me asking, why did you buy a macbook?
| maldev wrote:
| It's my first Mac, and I bought it because the actual
| machine is magical. It's so well built and has so many
| little things that make it great. I thought it was dumb and
| overhyped until my girlfriend got a M2. I then looked up
| the virtualization and played around with it a bit, and bar
| games, it's the best laptop for running Windows apps. And
| even then, it runs every game I would play on the road.
|
| I also really liked the memory layout they have. I have
| been messing around a ton with ML/AI, it's able to do local
| models faster than chatgpt and get like 70% the accuracy. I
| have a pretty beastly desktop setup, and it's a joy to use
| such a solid machine in bed while i'm watching TV.
| LASR wrote:
| I was able to get a fully functional Windows 11 install using
| UTM on my M1 MBP. This really helped with some Windows-only
| android tools with USB passthrough.
|
| I've not tried Linux.
|
| Note: I am not associated with UTM in any way, just a satisfied
| user.
|
| [1] https://mac.getutm.app/
| xvector wrote:
| I've always wondered what the security posture is of UTM,
| QEMU, etc. Is an escape trivial or is there thought put into
| security?
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Probably ARM Win 11 though right?
| gnatolf wrote:
| What's the progress, or who's behind a virtio layer for windows?
| Any hope that this will work in the foreseeable future?
| virtioliker wrote:
| There's mature VirtIO drivers for just about everything
| already, under the virtio-win umbrella:
| https://github.com/virtio-win/kvm-guest-drivers-windows
|
| My desktop PC is using libvirt+qemu (on an Arch host. I use
| Arch, btw) to PCI passthru my RTX 4090 GPU to a Windows guest.
| I installed the guest initially with emulated SATA for the main
| drive. Once Windows was up and running, I installed virtio-win
| and the guest is now using virtIO accelerated drivers for the
| network interface + main disk. I'm also sharing some
| filesystems using virtio-fs.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Did you have to use any hacks to get a regular GTX/RTX card
| to pass through? Last time I tried this with ESXi, it was
| insanely difficult and poorly documented to get non-Quadro
| cards to do pass thru (admittedly on a Windows guest).
| my123 wrote:
| NVIDIA changed this in 2021: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/ap
| p/answers/detail/a_id/5173/~/g...
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Thanks; that was after I tried to make things work and
| gave up.
| virtioliker wrote:
| (oh and to answer the other part of your question: I believe
| Red Hat contribute a lot to virtio-win)
| gnatolf wrote:
| Thanks. I'm sorry if my question wasn't particularly complex
| to answer ; - )
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Do you mean windows using virtio? Then the answer would be red
| hat and since many years ago:
|
| https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_VirtIO_Drivers
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Is it possible to virtualize 32 bit?
| zamadatix wrote:
| Virtualize no, there is no hardware support for 32 bit ARM on
| Apple Silicon. You can emulate it (32 bit ARM or x86) just fine
| though. Emulating the whole OS will be relatively slow compared
| to emulating just a userspace binary.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Great post. This is a massive change: now we get macOS VMs with
| full graphics performance and QE/CI.
|
| This was impossible on Intel machines without PCI passthrough of
| a compatible GPU (on a Hackintosh).
| nsteel wrote:
| Could the title of this piece also be "Why are arm VMs so
| different?" or is this actually specific to Apple's chips?
| Wouldn't anyone transitioning between two architectures while
| maintaining compatibility be in the exact same situation?
|
| I'm just curious what's special in this case (if anything).
| neilalexander wrote:
| The post is more about VirtIO than it is about the processor
| architecture. VirtIO is not ARM-specific.
| IMcD23 wrote:
| It's not Apple Silicon specific either. I don't understand
| the title. Maybe it should have been "Apple's virtualization
| API and VirtIO driver support on Apple Silucon"
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Technically, no. Effectively, sort of. When they
| transitioned to Apple Silicon they simultaneously
| transitioned to Virtio.
| bonzini wrote:
| Indeed, Virtualization.framework already supported virtio
| in guests before, but that's when they added host
| drivers. By the way this:
|
| > In the Virtio model, providing such support is the task
| of the operating system, not the virtualiser.
|
| is wrong. Virtualization.framework is a standard
| implementation of a virtualiser that is shipped with
| macOS, and while it includes virtio, it does not have to
| be part of the OS; the same task can be done by anyone
| (for example QEMU).
|
| The low-level, OS-dependent part of virtualization
| support is called Hypervisor.framework and it does not
| have any knowledge of virtio.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Running older versions of macOS in a VM enables users to run
| Intel-only apps long after Rosetta 2 support is dropped from the
| current macOS
|
| Now if they'd offer that _for x86 Windows guests_... I mean,
| games are the obvious thing but I guess the architectural
| differences between Apple 's PowerVR-family GPU and NV/AMD are
| just too large, but there's a ton of software that only has
| Windows binaries available and which I still need either an Intel
| macOS device or an outright Windows device to run.
|
| Yes I know UTM exists but it's unusably slow and the Windows
| virtio drivers it ships are outright broken.
| mort96 wrote:
| Even if you could get Windows working, what good would ARM
| Windows do?
|
| Honestly, running virtualized x86_64 Steam (using something
| like FEX) under Asahi Linux and using Proton seems like the
| most fruitful way to play Windows games on Apple Silicon
| hardware (at least once the GPU drivers mature).
| nxobject wrote:
| There's one obscure use case that won't work, sadly - people
| who have to use proprietary binary only drivers! I've been
| through hell trying to get Oculus Link to work.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I meant x86 Windows of course. No other way to flash Samsung
| or Mediatek phones, for example - the tools are all
| proprietary and only run on Windows.
| zamadatix wrote:
| ARM Windows probably already does better than future
| Asahi+Proton+FEX in that it includes a Rosetta2/FEX like
| layer of it's own, is otherwise the native Windows without
| needing to fake that interface, and e.g. Parallels already
| has DX11 working through Metal without the need for a future
| version of Asahi drivers combined with the layer in Proton.
|
| The downside to either approach is anticheats. Games without
| them can run great today, games with them can't run at all
| because they are kernel level x86 code and emulating the
| kernel architecture is too slow for games. It looks like
| Windows is doing another ARM push with higher end chips and
| less vendor exclusivity this time around - maybe that'll
| finally get enough market penetration to make this less of an
| issue going forward, at which point virtualized ARM Windows
| could be nearly fully viable.
| nottorp wrote:
| > > Running older versions of macOS in a VM enables users to
| run Intel-only apps long after Rosetta 2 support is dropped
| from the current macOS
|
| > Now if they'd offer that for x86 Windows guests...
|
| Hmm the way i read it they're running older ARM versions of Mac
| OS in the VMs. Not x86 versions. The virtualization
| infrastructure doesn't do architecture translation, that is
| done in software by the OS running inside the VM.
|
| As for x86 games... they run pretty well with x86 crossover
| emulating x86 windows that is then translated by rosetta 2 to
| arm... is your head spinning yet?
| andix wrote:
| Doesn't Windows do it more or less the same?
|
| A lot of Windows features depend on Hyper-V, once enabled Windows
| is not booted directly any more, Hyper-V is started and the main
| Windows system runs in a privileged VM.
|
| All other VMs need to utilize the Hyper-V hypervisor, because
| nested virtualization is not that well supported. So even VMware
| then is just a front-end for Hyper-V.
| neilalexander wrote:
| You are right that Windows itself runs under Hyper-V as a guest
| when virtualisation-based security is enabled and it even has
| paravirtual devices that are not massively different to VirtIO.
|
| I think your statement about VMware Workstation is right as of
| today too with recent versions, although for a long time older
| versions would simply refuse to start if it detected that
| Hyper-V was enabled, presumably because it made assumptions
| about the host virtualisation support.
| andix wrote:
| It's not just security features that need Hyper-V. Also WSL
| (Linux on Windows) or the Android Subsystem (run any side
| loaded app or anything from the Amazon App Store) need
| Hyper-V. Both of them are super useful for me, more and more
| things are iOS/Android App based only. Linux should speak for
| itself.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Only WSLv2 needs (or uses) Hyper-V.
| andix wrote:
| But WSL1 is de-facto dead, although it is still
| supported.
| josephg wrote:
| > Hyper-V is started and the main Windows system runs in a
| privileged VM.
|
| What are the performance implications of that?
| abhinavk wrote:
| Minor performance loss. 5% fps on average. MS recommends
| turning it off if gaming is your primary use.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| Even then it's really not that much of a hit if you have
| half-decent hardware, I've kept it on and I think the only
| issue I saw was launch day BG3 and it would use much more
| power from the wall than when I turned it off.
| therein wrote:
| Make sure to have Intel VT-x or AMD-V enabled too.
|
| There are now a lot of BIOS flags that you can have set
| to off by default that'll silently hinder performance.
| RandomBK wrote:
| Back when I ran Windows in a KVM VM for gaming, a lot of anti-
| cheat systems didn't take kindly to running in a virtualized
| environment.
|
| Turning on HyperV to go KVM->HyperV->Windows effectively
| 'laundered' my VM signature enough to satisfy the anticheats,
| though the overall perf hit was ~10-15%.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Very interesting. I wonder what sort of (available) CPU would
| be ideal for such a setup. A 7800x3D or 7950x. Also, was
| there any hit on the GPU side?
| declaredapple wrote:
| Yeah I'm very curious as to how this effected 99%
| framerates and frame pacing.
|
| I suspect only a modest hit to average framerate, but I can
| only imagine it hurt the actual max frametimes which make
| it "feel choppy" even if the framerate is still higher then
| your monitor's refresh rate.
| RandomBK wrote:
| More cache never hurts. I'd imagine there were GPU perf
| gaps, though they were hard to distinguish from CPU-based
| performance hits. The most notable issues were random
| latency spikes caused by the multiple layers of
| hypervisors, which interfered with some games and
| occasionally caused audio/video desync on Youtube.
|
| I ultimately tore down that setup and just swapped to dual-
| boot. The steps needed to set up high-performance VFIO
| (i.e. clearing enough contiguous RAM for 1GB Hugepages)
| meant most of the benefits of VFIO never really
| materialized for me.
| rdedev wrote:
| Is it possible to use hyper v directly? Like could I boot into
| linux but switch over to Windows with just a key press? I'm
| guessing no since its not in Microsoft interest to do so
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Not with Hyper-V but the thing to be aware of is there is no
| difference which you initially "boot into" since each is
| essentially run at the same level.
|
| You can install ESXi (free) to do what you are asking,
| though.
| andix wrote:
| ESXi is a completely headless system, except some minimal
| management UI/CLI there is no possibility to directly
| interact with the VMs on the host system. At least that's
| my understanding.
|
| And I think a very similar thing can be archived with
| Windows Server Core. Running Hyper-V with just a minimal
| Windows installation for management, without the full
| Windows UI.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Yeah, but it's configurable. I have it pull up the core
| on a VGA card and then boot up my primary VM on a GPU.
| andix wrote:
| That's an interesting idea, to run Hyper-V completely without
| Windows. I think it's not possible, at least not without some
| substantial amount of hacking.
|
| But it's no problem to run Linux on Hyper-V. It's a
| hypervisor, off course you can start nearly any operating
| system as a VM. You can also give the VM access to some
| hardware components. But I don't think it's possible to get a
| full native Linux desktop experience, with GPU/Screen,
| Keyboard and Mouse connected to the host system.
|
| Edit: this post seems to answer your question, not sure if
| it's correct: https://superuser.com/a/1531799
| als0 wrote:
| You can soon run Linux on Hyper-V without Windows: https://
| www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/linux_as_root_partiti...
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Hyper-V is started and the main Windows system runs in a
| privileged VM
|
| Wait it's all VMs? Always has been?! That is actual one
| sentence horror.
| lodovic wrote:
| Sometimes it's hard to tell how many VMs there are between my
| code and the actual hardware. It seems to be VMs all the way
| down.
| deaddodo wrote:
| It hasn't always been, nor is it necessarily now. If you
| enable Hyper-V, that will act as Hypervisor for your machine
| and boot Windows by default. Applications that use it
| (VMWare, for instance, or Microsoft ones like WSL2) will add
| their own guests to the Hypervisor.
|
| It is not the default configuration. And it wasn't even
| installed before Windows 8.
| andix wrote:
| Isn't virtualization based security the default for Windows
| 11? I only have upgraded Win 11 systems, so no idea what's
| the default on a fresh installation.
| edude03 wrote:
| > A lot of Windows features depend on Hyper-V, once enabled
| Windows is not booted directly any more, Hyper-V is started and
| the main Windows system runs in a privileged VM.
|
| Got a source for this? Not that I don't believe you but other
| than for the Xbox I haven't seen/can't find any details about
| this.
| dgellow wrote:
| Surprised you didn't find the information, it's covered in
| details in Microsoft own docs:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-
| on-...
|
| quote:
|
| " In addition, if you have Hyper-V enabled, those latency-
| sensitive, high-precision applications may also have issues
| running in the host. This is because with virtualization
| enabled, the host OS also runs on top of the Hyper-V
| virtualization layer, just as guest operating systems do.
| However, unlike guests, the host OS is special in that it has
| direct access to all the hardware, which means that
| applications with special hardware requirements can still run
| without issues in the host OS."
|
| From https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-
| v-on-...
| marshray wrote:
| "Virtualization-Based Security: Enabled by Default"
|
| https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/virtualization/virtua.
| ..
| transpute wrote:
| Apple Silicon M2+ has hardware support for nested virtualization.
|
| It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of
| $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base
| memory/storage. If a new iPad Magic Keyboard gains [2] an
| aluminum shell that looks like a Macbook, that could put iPad Pro
| into the price tier of Macbook Pros.
|
| If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs > Macbook Air + Mac Mini,
| that may allow Apple to untie iPad Pro M3 nested virt for iOS,
| macOS and Linux VMs.
|
| [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ipad-pro-2024
|
| [2] https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/3/23857409/ipad-aluminum-
| mag...
| raccoonDivider wrote:
| I don't understand why they're trying to turn iPads into
| laptops. Just start from their existing laptops and make them
| more mobile instead of trying to inflate a phone OS into
| something that does the job? Is this about control over the
| apps people can run?
| transpute wrote:
| Perhaps they are turning laptops into iPads. The
| price/performance of Apple Silicon laptops was a descendant
| of early iPad Pro SoCs, with current iPad Pros on M2. A
| couple of years ago, MacOS on Apple Silicon gained the
| ability to run iOS apps, either via the Mac appstore or by
| copying .ipa files.
| neilalexander wrote:
| In many ways, an iPad with a keyboard is probably the perfect
| home computer for people who don't really care about
| computers and just have simple requirements. The apps that
| people generally expect to find are there and a keyboard just
| makes it that bit more comfortable to sit and bash out an
| email or letter.
| chongli wrote:
| Yeah not to mention it's way easier to use than macOS.
|
| Macs used to be so easy to use on Classic Mac OS. Mac OS X
| really left a lot of people behind on the usability front.
| It became much more of a power user OS. Then iPads came
| along and stole that group (of ordinary users) away.
|
| But now it seems they're adding more and more power user
| features to iOS, complicating things again (with even less
| discoverability due to complex gestures). History seems to
| be repeating itself.
| user_7832 wrote:
| As someone who's never used MacOS fulltime, what did OS9
| do better than X? I've found modern MacOS fairly similar
| to windows in common tasks and interface.
| nottorp wrote:
| That's the problem. For example modern MacOS has in your
| face notifications and allows applications in the
| background to steal focus.
|
| I gather classic Mac OS was done so you can get on with
| whatever you're doing and nothing bothered you.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This is easily remedied.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/turn-a-focus-on-
| or-...
| nottorp wrote:
| No. It should be the default. And I bet it only refers to
| notifications, not to other applications stealing focus
| (as in bring themselves to the foreground) from the one
| you're into because they think they're damn important.
| raccoonDivider wrote:
| Do Not Disturb by default is a question of taste and use
| case, they probably brought to the desktop what people
| seemed to like on mobile devices.
|
| Applications stealing focus is a plague though. Maybe
| Apple will finally figure out that it's not worth having
| in their API.
| neilalexander wrote:
| Going somewhat off-topic here but classic Mac OS had very
| precise human interface guidelines[1] which strongly
| emphasised repeatable behaviours and recognisable
| patterns. For that matter, so did earlier versions of
| Windows[2]. A lot of thought went into visual cues and
| design elements so that things looked and acted
| predictably system-wide and they were designed so that it
| would always be obvious which elements were and weren't
| interactive.
|
| Both Apple and Microsoft have regressed in this respect.
| Minimalism and prettiness have taken priority over
| usability in both modern macOS and modern Windows and
| they are far more inconsistent and harder to learn to use
| as a result. Often something that you learn in one place
| place or app now doesn't work in another.
|
| In Apple's case this has been mostly as a result of their
| efforts to make macOS and iOS more alike and to share
| applications/components across the two, which often
| creates weird-feeling results and awkward app designs. In
| Microsoft's case this is mostly because they have more UI
| frameworks than sense and each new one introduces more
| problems than solutions. Electron-adjacent apps probably
| don't help matters either, since they also generally
| break all of the platform rules and implement their own
| UI controls anyway.
|
| [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/573097 [2]
| https://ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/courses/ICS104/course-
| notes/Micro...
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Sure, if you want to breed even more generations of
| computer illiterates. We should be encouraging people to
| learn about the computers they use so they can do actually
| useful stuff with it later in their life. Not just "hey
| here's an app, now go make me more money by looking at ads"
| matwood wrote:
| Someone using their phone or tablet with a keyboard to
| get things done is far from computer illiterate. For the
| majority of the population computers are a tool. Knowing
| deeply how they work is about as important as knowing
| deeply how their car works.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| If all they ever have access to is phones then their
| world consists solely of software they have been allowed
| to install by their platform overlords. Even if they had
| the urge to try and create something themselves, they
| would be forbidden from doing so.
|
| Just keep consuming those ads and don't think about it.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > their world consists solely of software they have been
| allowed to install by their platform overlords
|
| The same will be true of most cars within a generation,
| and is effectively true for most car owners now; they do
| not really know how to do much with their car beyond
| drive it, use the infotainment as-is and bring it in for
| repair when anything seems off.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Yes, everything is being fucked by the drive for profit.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Someone using their phone or tablet with a keyboard to
| get things done
|
| ... if you don't get a lot of things done.
|
| The main quality of a laptop is the keyboard is solidly
| attached to the screen. That means you can use it
| anywhere and you don't need to dedicate a desk like space
| for the keyboard.
|
| With an iPad you need a stand, space for the keyboard and
| then you're close to the space taken by a monitor with
| peripherals and a desktop under the desk. Might as well
| get a desktop then since it's more powerful.
|
| It may be useful for tasks that only need a keyboard 1%
| of the time though.
| RunSet wrote:
| > Someone using their phone or tablet with a keyboard to
| get things done is far from computer illiterate.
|
| Full literacy involves writing, not just reading. At one
| point the same held for computer literacy. I would not
| call someone "literate" if they could only read words
| they already recognized from viewing forms and their
| writing ability was limited to filling out those forms
| using a limited but appropriate vocabulary. I would
| likewise not consider someone computer literate if they
| were limited to using software written by others.
|
| For more eloquent words in this vein:
|
| https://citejournal.org/volume-2/issue-3-02/seminal-
| articles...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Does this apply to cars/appliances/medical equipment/any
| other tools?
|
| I don't see anything wrong with people excelling at some
| tasks, such as CAD/medicine/construction/editing
| media/law/etc, and not excelling at understanding all the
| details about how their tools work.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Yes. Cars are turning into pieces of shit that need a
| subscription because techbros made them too complicated
| for an average person to understand. Appliances, same
| story. Techbros are turning goddamn printers into a
| subscription service.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I guess I will have to disagree. My cars have been
| lasting longer and longer, and the cost per mile keeps
| going down.
|
| My appliances have also been working fine for 5+ years.
| LG inverter motor is dead silent in my fridge, and I get
| the benefits of having a French door fridge on top and
| freezer drawer on the bottom. Same for all the other
| appliances I have too. I don't expect them to last 20
| years, but as long as I get 5 to 10, I'm ok with it
| considering the price I paid.
|
| My brother printers have been working fine for many
| years, and at least as of 2021, the MFC printers did not
| need a subscription.
|
| Maybe things have changed and I haven't needed to buy
| anything in the last couple years.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| > Maybe things have changed and I haven't needed to buy
| anything in the last couple years.
|
| It has. Good luck finding a new printer that doesn't
| (figuratively) spit in your face repeatedly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have this one and it works great. No subscription
| needed or any funny business.
|
| https://www.brother-usa.com/products/mfcl2710dw
| ako wrote:
| How would you make a laptop more mobile? I think they've gone
| too small and too thin in the past, now settling on larger
| laptops.
|
| If i didn't need to program on my computer, i'd use an ipad
| as a single computing device for everything. It's perfect for
| couch consumption, and with stage manager, an external
| bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it's more than adequate for
| anything else you'd expect from a computer: office, photo and
| video editing and watching, internet browsing, email, etc.
|
| For 95% of all use cases, the ipad already is the best
| laptop.
| rtpg wrote:
| ipad touchscreen is good for reading documents and the like.
| While I've been a bit of a "make Macbooks with touchscreens
| you cowards" person, iOS (iPad OS but w/e) has a _lot_ of
| nice affordances that are centered around getting you quickly
| to your work in a couple of taps, and not futzing about with
| typing things in.
|
| The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an MP3
| from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a
| computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are
| good.
|
| Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS
| could use to get there. They seem to be trying with some
| changes though I don't really enjoy the changes so far
| gumby wrote:
| > The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an
| MP3 from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a
| computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are
| good.
|
| This is a very important metric! Jeff Hawkins famously
| walked around with a piece of wood in his pocket the
| planned size of the Palm Pilot, and when he wanted to do
| something (write down a note) he would work through how
| many key presses it would take on the new device. His limit
| was three.
|
| When I tried a BlackBerry I was infuriated by how many key
| presses everything took. What a horrible experience.
|
| > Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS
| could use to get there
|
| Like it or not, Apple's plan for this remains Siri.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| I use a combo of desktop computers with giant screens and an
| iPad. I like this better than having a laptop. I don't think
| the traditional multi-window paradigm works well on a very
| small screen (though I am aware it was invented for tiny
| screens!). When I'm mobile I prefer to have just one app at a
| time, or at most Stage Manager.
|
| The biggest problems I run into with iPadOS are not related
| to the OS, but stripped-down apps, or apps that don't use the
| file picker and other iPad features. In a few cases I have to
| use web apps (which work perfectly) instead of iPad apps, for
| example with Google Docs, since the iPad apps are more like
| stripped-down phone apps.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Agree that my biggest gripe with iPadOS is third party apps
| that don't take advantage of the platform. Cross-platform
| apps are the most notorious, usually being stretched out
| phone apps rather than proper tablet apps.
|
| It's still a far sight better than the Android tablet
| situation though, where stretched out phone apps are the
| norm instead of the exception.
| danieldk wrote:
| _It 's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of
| $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base
| memory/storage._
|
| I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. You can buy
| a new Galaxy Tab S9 with an excellent OLED screen from Amazon
| for $740.
|
| _If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs as much as Macbook
| Air + Mac Mini, hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the
| iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs._
|
| Unlikely. Apple is in the business of selling you a MacBook,
| iPhone and iPad. Even more now update cycles are slowing down.
| So, it's pretty unlikely that they'd go the route of Samsung
| DeX (which allows you to use a phone or tablet as a desktop).
|
| (Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external
| screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)
| transpute wrote:
| _> I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary._
|
| They are adding a 12.9 inch iPad Air, so they have an
| opportunity to differentiate iPad Pros from Air to justify
| the price difference, https://www.imore.com/ipad/ipad-
| air/129-inch-ipad-air-on-tra... The grand
| plans include a supersized iPad Air for the first time, and
| it seems like we're on track to see it launch in March 2024.
| Display analyst Ross Young has confirmed that the display
| shipments of the 12.9-inch iPad Air began in December.
|
| _> you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is
| not really a full desktop experience._
|
| Stage Manager does inch closer to a desktop experience, with
| apps in movable windows. Imagine a macOS VM in a large window
| on external monitor, alongside a small iOS app/VM window.
| With a cheap USB-C capture card, an external video or camera
| input can appear in an app window.
|
| _> Apple is in the business of selling you a Macbook, iPhone
| and iPad_
|
| If Apple can get same-or-better margins/revenue than
| Macbook+iPad with an iPad Pro, with less physical hardware
| thanks to virtualization, why not save on atoms and shipping?
| The iPad Pro has long been overpowered for the few iOS-
| approved use cases. Virtualization would finally unlock that
| power. Avoids carrying multiple devices. Eliminates any
| dependency on sidecar Raspberry Pi or cloud VM for Linux
| workloads.
| jwells89 wrote:
| It's rumored that the OLED panel used in the new iPad
| revision won't be a bog standard OLED, but instead a variant
| that emphasizes longevity and burn-in resistance by stacking
| two OLED layers atop each other (on top of the usual binning
| Apple does). That makes the price hike sound more plausible.
| Xylakant wrote:
| > (Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external
| screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)
|
| I have defaulted to iPad as mobile computer for a while now,
| instead of carrying a laptop around. It works well enough for
| most office tasks, with some trickery even for light on-call
| support. And it's definitely improving over time. The major
| pain point for me is currently file management.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| Why not just use a MacBook Air or something? It's basically
| the same price.
|
| I tried switching to iPad and the only thing I keep
| thinking about was "this is just my Mac, but worse in every
| single way"
| Xylakant wrote:
| I use the small iPad Pro, even the MacBook Air doesn't
| come close in terms of weight and form factor. I did use
| the tiny MacBook Air, and I'd love a 12" MacBook, but
| they no longer exist.
|
| On top of that, the combination of iPad, pen and
| paperlike screen protector is really nice for taking
| notes. The option to undock from the keyboard and just
| take the tablet is also nice.
|
| I agree that it's worse on pretty much every other metric
| and that it's an optimization for one specific metric,
| but it's workable.
|
| And plugged into a decent screen, it's pretty ok for most
| office tasks.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > Why not just use a MacBook Air or something? It's
| basically the same price.
|
| Not the person you posed the question to, but my
| reasoning is mostly that my MacBook Air is docked with my
| desktop peripherals when I'm home, and it's cumbersome to
| undock/redock it all the time, so I use my iPad if I'm
| not at my desk. If I need to do something that I can't do
| on my iPad, then I walk to my desk where I have a proper
| mouse/keyboard/monitor. I only undock my MacBook every
| few months when I'm travelling and need a real computer
| on the go.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Of course it's not necessary, but when apple sees a way to
| gouge for more money, they do it.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| > hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow
| it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs.
|
| Why would they do that ? They want their 30% on everything you
| install on iOS.
| transpute wrote:
| _> 30% on everything you install on iOS_
|
| That's likely changing soon in EU and Japan.
|
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-
| crack-d...
|
| _> The Japanese government sees this model as solidifying
| the companies ' dominance in the mobile market. The
| legislation aims to force them to allow third-party app
| stores and payment systems as long as they are secure and
| protect user privacy. Japanese companies would be able to run
| dedicated game stores on iOS devices, as well as use payment
| systems with lower fees from Japanese fintech companies._
|
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711375/coming-soon-
| to...
|
| _> You download an app from Apple's App Store and then use
| it to access the enterprise app store. There's still a step
| where Apple inserts itself -- the enterprise app store is
| itself an app that Apple has vetted and allowed in its own
| App Store. Most likely Apple will want alternatives to its
| App Store to work the same way._
| ink404 wrote:
| likely they want to support using Xcode to develop apps on
| iPad
| MissTake wrote:
| That changed years ago.
|
| Most developers now see a 15% hit, only going to 30% once
| they've hit certain thresholds.
| zamadatix wrote:
| While that's somewhat not as horrible for new developers I
| wonder how far that actually puts Apple's average cut from
| 30% (in terms of revenue not developer count) or how much
| it changes the point that it's nowhere near 0%.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I am a person outside of apple ecosystem that has to use iPhone
| and occasionally iPad for work.
|
| Question : how do you manage your files?
|
| My wife hears a primeval scream from our home office every 3
| months when I determine to try to get files off my iPhone
| (voice memos, photos, downloads, whatever) or God forbid put
| files _on_.
|
| Even worse screams when I try to manage files on device such as
| "delete all photos" (cannot.be.done).
|
| And I degenerate into gurgles when I try to find or manage
| different files (a downloaded jpeg is "not" a photo and cannot
| be found via photos app,has been my bitterly learned
| experience. Because reasons).
|
| I know modern generations are more comfy outside of
| hierarchical folder / file structure and treat their device
| like a massive database, which, fine in principle. But after 4
| years of iphone usage I still see it as a massive black hole
| where files go in but don't come out. So I... Cringe with
| terrified shakes when people talk about iPads for work. How do
| your organize your files on them? How do you manage and
| transfer and version control?
|
| Or am I a dinosaur and everybody's files are emephereally in
| the google or apple cloud and it's just not a problem, things
| are magically right and where they need to be?
| matwood wrote:
| For photos, either Photos app or Lightroom cloud is what I
| have used. I have a usb-c sd card reader that I use to upload
| photos onto the iPad. From there they end up on all my
| devices. The nice thing is this works if I instead upload
| them onto my MBP or took pictures with my iPhone.
|
| For files, iCloud has worked fine.
|
| Personally, I don't want to think about moving files from one
| device to another. I want them available on all devices
| regardless of where they were created/added.
| oblio wrote:
| No, people just suffer in silence.
|
| There are famous Youtubers like MKBHD that more or less every
| year say:
|
| "The new iPad is great, the hardware is awesome, I use the
| iPad a ton, but I can't use it to replace a laptop because of
| the lack of file management/window management/...".
|
| I have heard this text in similar forms for at least 3 years.
|
| You can make do, but it is as awkward as you'd expect.
|
| The only winning entity is Apple, that gets people to also
| buy laptops and to be even more locked into this crippled
| setup, since as you said, younger generations aren't as aware
| of the possibilities, anymore.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I don't think MacOS is a crippled system. Agreed that
| trying to use an iPad as a primary device is torture. But,
| compared to Windows, MacOS is comparably accommodating of
| my needs as a developer.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Is it though? I mean, I do remember the same, but I just
| booted into Win 11 after buying a GPD Win and it looks
| nice. Microsoft seems to have resigned itself to the fact
| that as a developer you should use WSL2.
|
| If you do any kind of docker related development you will
| inevitably install something similar to WSL2 using docker
| desktop or whatever. Technically it now supports native
| containers, but we're not there yet.
| nottorp wrote:
| WSL2 is also a virtual machine isn't it? It virtualizes
| x86 linux on x86 windows, kinda seamlessly, but still
| that's all it is.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Which is exactly what docker desktop on macOS does as
| well. Unless you're doing iOS or macOS development,
| contrary to common belief WSL2 is actually integrated
| better than it's mac counterparts. You can even mount
| other linux partitions into WSL.
| nottorp wrote:
| Docker desktop is a piece of crap on macOS. It allocates
| half your ram for a linux VM and then allocates other
| linux VMs inside it. If you're doing servers, that's 7+
| Gb of ram wasted since your work VMs will at most use
| hundreds of megabytes.
|
| I sure hope WSL does better :)
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I like the MBP hardware. I think once I feel comfortable
| relying on Asahi it would be nice to run that instead of
| MacOS.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| I manage files on my iPad (and iPhone) with Files and iCloud
| Drive. It's been around for a while! The problem is that many
| apps are still stuck in 2015. But for apps that support it,
| using the Files file picker is no different than using the
| Mac file picker and Finder. You open files, you save them,
| they sync. Some apps do default to their own folder in iCloud
| Drive, but that folder can be accessed by any other app and
| is also available on the desktop.
|
| Sadly third-party support for Files plugins is not what it
| should be (Google Drive is so incomplete I don't know why
| they even bother). The major cloud services want you using
| their apps, I guess.
|
| But Secure Shellfish does it perfectly so my Windows media
| server is available as a "file system" on my iPhone and iPad
| via SFTP.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| Why would you use an iPhone if you don't want to use iCloud?
| That is the entire point of buying into the Apple ecosystem.
| r3d0c wrote:
| so you have to pay apple an ongoing fee to be able to
| manage your own files?
|
| does that seem rational?
|
| also such a weird line of thought that buying a single
| apple product isn't enough to be able to use it properly,
| and that any criticism of apple is just "us plebs using it
| wrong and not paying them more money"
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| You don't have to pay Apple to manage your files. You can
| manage them with a traditional file manager if you'd like
| akin to any other device.
|
| If you want cloud storage, Apple provides free iCloud
| storage that will keep everything synced across your
| devices. There is an upper limit to the free tier space,
| at which you can purchase additional storage or move to a
| cloud platform of your choice.
| nottorp wrote:
| Considering how much of a premium you pay for the
| iPhones, that upper limit is stingy like hell.
|
| And Apple's marketing ain't great either. They push your
| photos to iCloud by default, which fills the free space
| instantly, then when you try to turn that off they give
| you a vague and threatening message that your photos will
| be lost.
|
| Marketing by threats will make me to at best give money
| to the competition.
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| Do you have the text from the message that says all of
| your photos will be lost? I've never seen it.
| nottorp wrote:
| Yeah right, I'm hallucinating and so is my wife. More
| likely, you consider this type of sales copy normal and
| didn't notice it.
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| I use the Apple one family plan which is 2TB of storage
| so I've likely simply never seen it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| But I do have and pay for Icloud.
|
| And then what? There's a dozen messages here that say
| "Icloud" and I guess that's the point, people use cloud and
| done care for details. But I do! I want to offload the
| files and put them on my NAS and on my backup off site
| drive and manage and organize them. Icloud is not a step in
| that direction (maybe it is if you have a Mac laptop but
| while point here is discussing iphone and iPad as their own
| devices.).
| alberth wrote:
| iCloud.
|
| Dropbox is a close 2nd, but won't do everything you described
| (like download folder) - but iCloud will.
| r3d0c wrote:
| pay apple again to be able to manage your own files, lol..
| alberth wrote:
| iCloud is free (up to 5GB). That seems fair.
|
| https://www.apple.com/icloud/#:~:text=Is%20there%20a%20fr
| ee%....
|
| Which mobile platform provides unlimited/better for no
| cost?
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >Which mobile platform provides unlimited/better for no
| cost?
|
| Could you explain how it is free?
|
| I mean, could it be possible that the _actual cost_ of
| the 'free' icloud is built into the prices/ cost of the
| device(s) you originally purchased (so that you can store
| your stuff in the icloud)?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Which mobile platform provides unlimited/better for no
| cost?
|
| For one, Android. I use Syncthing; my phone reports that
| I've synced 27gb of local state to my PC and laptop
| without me paying a dime.
|
| Caveat being, you have to use a mobile platform that
| doesn't prevent third-parties from integrating with the
| OS. iCloud's quality is almost besides the point when
| Apple uses their software control to ensure a feature-
| complete alternative can't exist.
| ylk wrote:
| Your phone manufacturer gave you a box with syncthing +
| storage for free with purchase of your device?
|
| Nextcloud also works on iOS, integrates with the Files
| app and was always able to sync photos right after I took
| them.
| foobiekr wrote:
| I spent yesterday recovering some files that had silently
| reverted to October 2023 versions on - no kidding -
| December 24th. I only noticed it yesterday morning when I
| opened a spreadsheet and was absolutely baffled.
|
| This is the second time iCloud has fucked me. As much as I
| want to use it I no longer trust it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| "Icloud" and... Then what? I pay for Icloud and I still
| cannot manage files or offload them easily. I have 50k
| photos by now because I've struggled for years, so any tip
| that starts with "drag select photos and then..." can
| bugger off :-))))
|
| I've installed the monster of iTunes on my windows and that
| shucked remaining life out of me. Then I installed Icloud
| for Windows or whatever it was called and I oscillated
| between murdering myself and others. It just doesn't work.
| At best I was able to slowly drag and select 1000 photos at
| a time to get crippled small version of the files.
| DavidPastrnak wrote:
| icloud keeps everything synced across my devices seamlessly -
| M1 Air, iPhone, and iPad.
| zx8080 wrote:
| Why do you need files out? Just buy more iCloud storage. Or
| how is it supposed to work in iEcoSystem?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I assume you're sarcastic but I already pay for Icloud and
| it doesn't help me meaningfully manage files or move them
| out of apple ecosystem :-(
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The Files app can connect to various cloud services / local
| servers by adding locations.
|
| For example, you can add a location for a folder shared via
| SMB from your Windows based computer.
|
| https://osxdaily.com/2019/11/04/how-connect-smb-share-
| iphone...
| TheCoreh wrote:
| The Files app allows storing files locally, and mounting
| network shares. You can also seamlessly copy and paste files
| (via handoff) between macOS and iOS.
|
| I typically just hit Cmd+C on the Mac and long press+Paste on
| Files on the iPhone. If you are using the iPad with an
| external mouse or trackpad you can also drag and drop it
| directly to the Mac.
|
| As for the distinction between random JPEG files and the
| Photos app, I think that's actually quite good. I don't get
| my gallery littered with random images, and it also supports
| non destructive editing, among other features. Moving between
| the two is also fairly easy, you can use the Share sheet or
| just drag and drop.
|
| The one thing I would change is that screenshots end up in
| Photos.app by default, I'd rather have them go to Files.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Thx for your reply!
|
| >> As for the distinction between random JPEG files and the
| Photos app, I think that's actually quite good.
|
| Please don't take this personally, but that always
| terrifies me. It's like modern apple owner "sour grapes"
| fable - "I actually love this random limits tion, it makes
| my life much easier " and I hear it a lot! If I right click
| and save photo in some apps or websites it is in photos
| app, but in random other apps _that same file_ is no longer
| a photo. How 's that good? There are a million ways to "not
| clutter" that are better. Folder might be one but if that's
| anathema, then albums or tags. It's a completely random
| subset of things that end up being photos vs not, seemingly
| based on location or tags that arr neither visible or
| accessible to me as a user. I get that this is "good" for
| some people, I am clearly not in that group though.
|
| Re ease of copying files, does _any_ of that work if you
| don 't have a Mac? Context of conversation here is iPhone /
| iPad as independent working devices and ability to transfer
| files without a Mac OS device. I am readily convinced that
| if I bought whole heartedly into apple ecosystem and only
| apple,my life would be easier along some axis, but that's
| not a life I lead - I have the black box of iphone and I
| cannot for example delete all photos on it in any way that
| I could find including in the app, in the settings, via
| apple support or apple store creepily smiling people :-/.
| TheCoreh wrote:
| Not taking it personally, :-) I 100% understand why you
| might also prefer it the other way.
|
| The weird "some apps save it to Photos while others save
| it to Files" situation is a consequence of Files being a
| relatively late addition to the iOS ecosystem. A lot of
| apps are poorly maintained, use some cross platform
| framework that doesn't support the Files feature well, or
| the developers are simply unaware of the distinction. It
| will probably get better over time.
|
| One thing Apple could do in the mean time is to also
| expose Photos as a folder view inside of Files (they do
| this on macOS, to some extent, on the file pickers. I've
| never actually used it)
|
| Re: Transferring it to a PC, the one thing that won't
| work is the seamless copy and paste via handoff. You can
| plug in a USB stick into an iPad or iPhone (using an
| adapter for pre-15 models, or if the USB stick is USB-A)
| formatted as exFAT and it should just work.
|
| AFAIK, there isn't a single button to delete all photos,
| probably to avoid people doing it accidentally. You'll
| need to manually select all photos and hit delete. Or you
| can also write a small script via the Shortcuts app to
| delete them for you.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| Re: delete all photos, did you know that - if you are viewing
| a list of photos in an 'album' - you can click the Select
| button at the top right corner of the screen and then drag-
| select all the files? It's quite tricky to do - you have to
| tap to select the first file, then touch and immediately drag
| to do the second file onwards. Took me years to discover this
| by accident - it's the most fiddly/weird/hidden feature in an
| operating system that has become increasingly full of them.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I thank you for your reply, but are you trying to tell me
| drag selecting 50k photos is the way to go?
|
| (And if people start screaming "why do you have 50k on your
| phone??!?", I'll start screaming right back "because I
| cannot offload or manage or delete them!!!" :-)
| jahewson wrote:
| > Or am I a dinosaur and everybody's files are emephereally
| in the google or apple cloud and it's just not a problem,
| things are magically right and where they need to be?
|
| Yep! Use iCloud and unburden yourself from ever thinking
| about files again.
| callalex wrote:
| I have a shared iCloud folder with my dad with a few .mp4s in
| it that will consistently cause a hard crash on any iOS
| device by just...viewing the folder in Files. It crashes so
| hard that the entire system locks up and you can't close the
| app, and holding down the power button doesn't work to
| restart. You have to wait for the device to actually overheat
| and then shut itself off to cool down before you can bring it
| up again.
| zamadatix wrote:
| $500-$700 rumour sounds like something to get you to click and
| share their article rather than an honest estimate. Their logic
| for the two numbers is the panel is estimated to cost $250-$350
| (depending on size) and they estimate a 50% profit margin on
| the iPads so the base model will be 2*$[250,350]=$[500,700]
| more... which means they must calculate the existing screen to
| be completely free? They don't mention anything about the base
| specs increasing in that root article but even if they did
| that's not clear to be an actual increase in production cost.
| It's a newer device after all.
|
| I expect a price increase of some sort, it's the safe thing to
| bet on and anybody else could safely write about that too, but
| I'm already disappointed how much time I've spent talking about
| a clickbait future Apple device rumour news article which
| attempts to create the worst possible number they think they
| can get away with claiming as realistic.
| blikdak wrote:
| AI generated nonsense, transition from intel to arm architecture
| has nothing to do with virtio.
| Klonoar wrote:
| ...you actually think a notable Apple-centric blog is AI-
| generated nonsense?
|
| Am I reading this right?
| bonzini wrote:
| It does have a lot of confusing or downright wrong content.
| Saying that it's hallucinations is in some sense a compliment
| to the author...
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| The article is literally contentless. It doesn't answer its own
| question. I don't know if its AI generated or a marketing fluff
| piece. Virtio is nothing but an interface/protocol and won't
| magically make your VMs any different -- in fact it was already
| commonly used in x86 VMs.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| My great confusion is why docker ---platform linux/amd64 is so
| much faster (almost native performance) than x86 UTM VMs. Can
| docker somehow leverage Rosetta?
| koenigdavidmj wrote:
| Docker runs an ARM kernel and uses qemu in user mode on the
| individual binary level. Anything CPU-bound is emulated, but as
| soon as you do a system call, you're back in native land, so
| I/O bound stuff should run decently.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Ditch Docket.. Orbstack is fast..
| steeve wrote:
| It does yes, Apple provides Rosetta for Linux:
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| Yes, Docker can leverage Rosetta. I haven't used Docker Desktop
| in a bit (b/c I end up doing my work in a VM on Azure since I
| work on Azure), but not too long ago there was an option to
| enable it in the settings panel, not sure if it's default or
| not these days.
|
| Any Linux VM can use Rosetta[1] you just need to enable it when
| booting the vm. This creates a shared directory in the vm that
| you need to mount and then register Rosetta with binfmt_misc
| (same way Docker uses qemu).
|
| [1]
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
| MBCook wrote:
| I remember seeing it was out of beta in the release notes of
| Docker Desktop not too long ago.
| arianvanp wrote:
| Note that UTM also supports rosetta. Boot up an aarch64 image
| with Rosetta support and then load the mounted binfmt handler.
| Now you can run x86 binaries on your aarch64 UTM VM. Works
| flawlessly.
|
| If you use NixOS you can simply enable
| https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=23.11&show=virtuali...
| eptcyka wrote:
| Daily reminders that apple only allows 2 concurrent virtualised
| instances of macOS to run on their hardware.
| arianvanp wrote:
| Is that a technical or a contractual limitation?
|
| edit: I fucked around and found out:
|
| The number of virtual machines exceeds the limit. The maximum
| supported number of active virtual machines has been reached.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Use a better hypervisor like ESXi (but I don't think a
| different hyoervisor is available for Apple silicon).
| caycep wrote:
| Do all commercial desktop VMs - VMWare fusion/parallels/UTM/Vimy
| now use this virtio model?
|
| in theory win arm64 should run roughtly the same for all?
| janandonly wrote:
| Owh waawh. I see this article mentions drivers written by Rusty
| Russell, who I encourage everyone to follow on twitter (he is
| @rusty_twit) for his deep insights into software development.
| svdr wrote:
| I wanted to use a MacOS VM with Parallels for development. It is
| very easy to install and runs fast, but it's impossible to sign
| in with an Apple ID, which severely limits its use.
| sneak wrote:
| Severely? I use macOS directly on hardware without an Apple ID
| as my daily driver.
|
| It works fine.
| chaxor wrote:
| Man is this the case.
|
| I have been trying to figure out how to have a single command to
| make a Qemu VM on an M2 Apple silicon chip for like a _year_
| without much luck.
|
| All I want is to run something like Alpine Linux + Sway WM on
| Qemu while on macOS or AsahiLinux with one command on cli.
|
| On x86-64 its fairly simple :(
| hinkley wrote:
| I think this is basically what Colima is doing, if you're
| willing to run docker containers to get it
| chaxor wrote:
| It would be silly to install Colima for this though.
|
| If the argument is that Colima --calls--> Lima --calls--> {a
| ton of different things including kubernetes and docker and
| ...} --calls--> a QEMU command somewhere deep in the code,
| then the _only_ thing that is required here is QEMU. Not
| kubernetes or any other junk on top that just adds complexity
| and potential insecurity.
|
| One QEMU command should be all that's required.
| r-bar wrote:
| Lima (1) is a project that packages Linux distros for MacOS and
| executes them via qemu in the backend. Maybe you could solve
| your problem by launching one of their vms and inspecting the
| command line it generates. You might find an option you were
| missing.
|
| (1) https://github.com/lima-vm/lima
| chaxor wrote:
| I'll check this out. There are many different systems out
| there like UTM and such, but I want the most basic /
| _minimal_ amount of dependencies, which will work basically
| anywhere - which is just QEMU. Not UTM, or maybe parallels,
| sometimes Lima, for Mac and then virtualbox for windows, and
| QEMU Linux type of nonsense. Just QEMU should suffice
| everywhere, and it 's much more secure that way.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| I wish every OS user logged in their isolated VM of the OS. This
| way, Adobe could install all their bloatware and take control of
| their user and I could keep ownership of my Apple's computer
| curt15 wrote:
| Isn't that roughly what Qubes OS provides?
| deusum wrote:
| Qubes does allow creating a VM for just about any program or
| service. But, in my experience, it suffers from latency. So,
| while fine for web browsing, it wasn't too keen on playing
| videos. YMMV of course, but Adobe products are already hogs
| without the emu layer.
| jdewerd wrote:
| What's sad is that processes are already virtual machines, they
| just need to have a better permissions system. What's _really_
| sad is that for the most part those better permissions systems
| have been built (namespaces /cgroups on linux, gatekeeper on
| Mac OS) but nobody figured out how to expose that to end users
| before the business people figured out that there were
| trillions of dollars available if you charged rent to centrally
| manage it.
|
| We were so close. Sigh.
| lox wrote:
| Is this not essentially what docker did with cgroups? It's
| incredibly tricky securing containers, I'm not at all
| confident process only sandboxes would be adequate.
| theossuary wrote:
| There's a big difference between securing containers, and
| using them to prevent Adobe from polluting they entire
| system. Containers are an excellent way to provide lower
| guarantees of security (though still more than is there
| currently), with higher usability. Microvms also fit into
| the model very cleanly and could be used transparently when
| higher security was required.
|
| The fact that VMs are necessary has shown how much OSes
| have failed. That we need to take an OS and package it into
| multiple VMs to get any real isolation is a problem that
| OSes should solve for.
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