Running Arm64.aarch64 FreeBSD on QEMU/UTM.app on Apple Silicon

[ingve]

https://weblog.antranigv.am/posts/2022/11/running-arm64-aarch64-freebsd-on-qemu-utm-app-on-apple-silicon/

[pickleMeTimbers]

It's possible to use Apple's virtualisation framework when running native arch VMs in QEMU, for example setting -accel to hfv, seen here: https://github.com/beringresearch/macpine

UTM should also support this.

[ubercow13 → pickleMeTimbers]

That sounds like Hypervisor.framework (hvf) not Apple's virtualisation framework, which is independent.

[jbverschoor → pickleMeTimbers]

UTM does "already" if you enable "Use Hypervisor"

[MuffinFlavored → jbverschoor]

This is the most performant option for virtualization on arm64 Mac, right?

[abyssal512]

Would it be possible to use the Apple Virtualization framework instead of emulating AArch64? That should result in more performance.

[vbezhenar → abyssal512]

Before macOS 14, Virtualization framework required bare linux kernel file and initrd to load Linux. I'm not sure if that format is compatible with other systems.

Since macOS 14 you can actually specify ISO file instead. So it makes sense to try out other operating systems.

Anyway there's very little flexibility in virtualization framework. So if one would want to build a proper virtualization solution to support multiple operating systems, Hypervisor framework would be more appropriate. Of course it's low level.

With virtualization framework one can't even provide support for custom storage formats like qcow2. It's very bare-bones.

[Aaron2222 → vbezhenar]

I assume you mean macOS 13 (Ventura)?

[vbezhenar → Aaron2222]

Yes, sorry.

[bogantech → abyssal512]

UTM supports this, you can choose Apple virtualisation instead of QEMU when creating the VM

[saagarjha → abyssal512]

QEMU uses the Hypervisor framework just like Virtualization does.

[mark_l_watson]

That is cool. Satisfying to figure out an optimization like that!

A little off topic, but on my M1 Macs I have been using Lima https://github.com/lima-vm/lima to get shells running in a Linux container.

Google has done a very good job adding containerization to ChromeOS. I keep a Lenovo Chromebook around for quick access to Linux. I find myself doing this more often than SSHing to a VPS.