OSX-KVM VS quickemu

Yes, I recently had to compile some stuff on Windows (I'm on an AMD Linux host) and VirtualBox just wouldn't start Microsoft's Windows dev VM (the one they provide for free for Virtualbox). I ended up learning how to use qemu and it works great...and as a bonus I was able to run a hackintosh (via https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM) and it works near flawlessly, which was something I was never able to accomplish with Virtualbox (granted I haven't tried in a few years).

I'm pretty happy with Qemu now, even if it's jsut a CLI interface. I was tempted to try the virt-* stuff, but honestly it seems like one more thing to learn so I'm going to hold off until I need something like copy/paste between VMs and can't figure it out in qemu direct.

Working on a patch to include it as a flake input instead of vendoring it in the repo, so this should no longer be true. I use the QCOW2s for OpenCore from osx-kvm that I have not figured out how to reproduce yet https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM/blob/master/OpenCore/OpenCore.qcow2

For almost a year, I have been coding a little project in Python intended to piggyback on the framework of kholia's OSX-KVM project, known as ultimate-macOS-KVM, or ULTMOS.

I just researched a bit, mac os x guest vm with pcie passthrough seems possible on linux.

Dropping the links below:

https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

https://github.com/yoonsikp/macOS-KVM-PCI-Passthrough

VirGL is definitely an interesting project, but all one has to do to get GPU passthrough working (from a Linux QEMU host to any guest OS) is: 1.) research a cheap, secondary GPU that is natively supported by the guest OS, 2.) plug such a secondary GPU into a PCIe slot on the host and hook it up to the primary monitor with a secondary cable (D-Sub vs. DVI, etc.), 3.) setup Linux to ignore the secondary GPU at boot and configure a QEMU VM for the GPU passthrough. The whole process takes perhaps one or two hours and as works flawlessly, with no stability issues. (Switching across the two GPU cables can be accomplished in software by using Display Data Channel /DDC/ utilities and switching keyboard/mouse can be accomplished by using evdev /event device/ passthrough.) More information: https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM/blob/master/notes.md#gpu-p...

I get "verification failed" error when using https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

I also see there is KVM-OSX which looks to be actively maintained, but I haven't heard anything about it.

You can use qemu/libvirt/kvm on any Linux host to run macOS pretty easily these days[1]. I run Ventura on unraid with nvidea gpu passthrough and it’s been fairly painless.

You can also run macOS in docker, but it’s ultimately running through qemu/kvm as well[2]

1. https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

2. https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX

I think this could be of some use to you https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

i cloned that repository

https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu

Tl;Dr use quickemu: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu

There's also quickgui to help with launching VMs: https://github.com/quickgui/quickgui

(I've been using it for annual chores on windows)

[2] https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/blob/0c8e1a5205...

Multipass is pretty clutch for trivial VMs on MacOs for sure. I use it for a bunch of ssh jump boxes running vpns to different sites. The macOS build does not support custom images (lest not without [some truly insane hacks](https://github.com/canonical/multipass/issues/1260#issuecomm...) , which doesn’t really matter for what I use it for but it is kind of a bummer. If you need something with a little more grunt but don’t want to go full blown with writing your own QEMU tooling or fussing with something like UTM or Parallels, [quickemu](https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu) is a really nice qemu wrapper with sane defaults that can expose a whole lot of power if you need it.

Also: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues/88

Overall, don't be afraid to switch distro (use Ventoy, load a few ISOs just in case), try to make sure you have an easy way of backing up your stuff (be it with a separate /home partition, or like I do with storing everything important in a separate drive and then using symlink to make it 'appear' in their 'default' places), and you can always use VM in a pinch (consult this guide or use quickemu or gnome-boxes)

In case some things you do absolutely needs Windows, keep this guide for setting up VM in mind, or use quickemu's GUI.

VM will be shutdown automatically when it's inactive for a while. I will eventually add more distros going forward. Most distro isos are downloaded using the quickget script from the wonderful quickemu project. You may directly contribute to the upstream project to get the distro added to DistroSea.

If you want to do this super easily, check out the QuickEmu project with the QuickGUI: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu

Looks great! Does anyone know how Virter compare with quickemu?