xhyve VS lima

This is due to the way Windows and OSX implement docker. They both use a VM running Linux; Windows uses Hyper-V and OSX uses Bhyve. (https://github.com/machyve/xhyve)

Nowadays, docker uses runc, that is OCI compliant. Docker on macOS uses Hypervisor.framework through xhyve, and is completely macOS native. No VM is used (even under the hood) when running docker on macOS, it's native.

I was happiest with xhyve https://github.com/machyve/xhyve

Serial console in terminal was nice (for me!), network configuration was trash (I think I was able to set the subnet by fiddling around with system plists? and it would revert from time to time), and I didn't have to deal with Virtualbox. I've been away from macs for a while, I don't know if xhyve works on the M1, but it might. I ran a FreeBSD vm so I could run my server code on my laptop in an environment that was like production but slower.

The xhyve fork/port of bhyve for MacOS is worth mentioning: https://github.com/machyve/xhyve

Docker for Mac actually spins up TinyCoreLinux VMs using xhyve that your docker containers run on top of. This is because containers borrow the host kernel, so you can't natively run Linux containers on Mac. Xhyve spawns VMs so a Linux kernel will be present.

There's also been a port of FreeBSD's bhyve to macOS for years: https://github.com/machyve/xhyve (which, in turn, is [or at one point was] used by Docker to virtualize Linux)

I've used xyhve on my Mac to have a FreeBSD VM running a copy of https://www.freshports.org/, including a copy of the database, which runs about 200GB. For dev work, it was fine. I used it when I didn't have [great] internet connectivity, for example, when on the train/plane. When upgrading packages or just doing dev work, it was great.

You can run a virtual machine (e.g. lima) from inside a nix-shell, exactly as you would do with a regular shell.

for others similarly curious, here's an example of the thing: https://github.com/noop-inc/template-java-spring-boot/blob/m...

they seem to be using the excellent lima <https://github.com/lima-vm/lima#readme> for booting on macOS; I run colima for its containerd and k8s support but strongly recommend both projects $(brew install lima colima)

Lima is what I use as well. It's quick and easy to just fire up a VM with default settings, but also very easy to configure with different file sharing options, port forwarding, different linux distributions, etc. (their examples are also pretty good IMO [1]).

In particular I use it to run an amd64 VM, which I need to run a stubborn service for work that doesn't run on arm CPUs.

[1] https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/tree/master/examples

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

If you wish to delve into all the configuration possibilities for Lima VM, you can visit this resource.

I'd say Lima and Colima should be enough for most use cases:

https://lima-vm.io/

https://github.com/abiosoft/colima

Github: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

Lima wraps QEMU in a simple CLI, with neat features for container users, such as filesystem sharing and automatic localhost port forwarding, as well as DNS and proxy propagation for enterprise networks. Rancher Desktop wraps Lima with k3s integration and GUI.

Talks: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/blob/master/docs/talks.md