virtualbox-org-svn-vbox-trunk VS homebrew-qemu-virgl

So my understanding – if you run VirtualBox on macOS, and you choose macOS as Guest OS type when creating your VM, it automatically turns GetKeyFromRealSMC on. That means you are using option (2) by default. You can always switch to option (1) instead if you want to, but if you are virtualising macOS-on-macOS, there is little reason to.

From reading the VirtualBox source code [0] – it also automatically enables GetKeyFromRealSMC if it detects Apple hardware, even if the host OS isn't macOS. So, if you install Windows on your Mac, and then create a macOS VM in VirtualBox, it will automatically select option (2) as well. (I think, they actually include the code to talk to the Apple SMC in their Windows and Linux kernel drivers too.)

(Note I haven't actually tried doing this myself, this is just what I gather from the source.)

[0] https://github.com/mdaniel/virtualbox-org-svn-vbox-trunk/blo...

If you want a DE like GNOME or KDE then use this qemu package, graphics run like butter IMO on my M1 MacBook Air (though only on Linux guests, not Windows) https://github.com/knazarov/homebrew-qemu-virgl

I didn't use this, but a similar/related project that is for MacOS, https://github.com/knazarov/homebrew-qemu-virgl

Vagrant is an orthogonal tool to this, it is a VM orchestrator not an actual VM. What does this do: well, qemu doesn't have virgl support merged yet, so you need to go to some lengths to compile it for yourself.

All of the other stuff (spice, virtio) is for "it should be a nice user experience" above and beyond simply fast. In other words, you should be able to copy and paste between the host OS and the guest. You should be able to slide your mouse across the border of the VM window and do some clicking around then simply slide it back out and use your mouse with native host-OS windows again.

These things are all not granted when you use qemu out of the box. I have this intense 25-lines "qemu" script for invoking qemu-system properly. It was enlightening but I'm not sure how much I was enriched by the process of actually figuring all this out.

Quickemu is for making this easier (and on Linux.)

How about the build with VIRGL support here?

I recently discovered QEMU, switched from VirtualBox on my Mac (Intel, Big Sur), and have been loving the improved performance. Running Linux Mint is amazing, especially after knazarov's homebrew package of the 3D-accelerated QEMU-Virgl project.