TFA does not contain the word "copy", but copy-paste (shared clipboard) support stands out strongly to me as being "different" in Apple Silicon virtualization at this time.
TFA does mention the word "clipboard", but the containing sentence, while perhaps technically correct, seems a bit misleading, as follows: "As implemented in macOS (both as guest and host), there are also extensions to support keyboard and pointing devices, a shared clipboard, and high-performance graphics with Metal and GPU support." As I understand it, even if those extensions "exist", what good are they if they are not adopted?:
- If you virtualize macOS within macOS on Apple Silicon using UTM, you cannot copy paste between systems reliably (bidirectional shared clipboard is very, very fragile; "can" work a little but is essentially fully broken/unreliable).
- If you virtualize macOS within macOS on Apple Silicon using Parallels (often considered a best-choice solution), you cannot copy paste between systems at all (bidirectional shared clipboard is an explicit non-feature at this time).
Thus, if you want bidirectional clipboard, on a macOS host, you'll have to run a *nix (seems to work) or maybe Win (I haven't tried) guest OS.
I would have tried VMWare Fusion (free for personal use), but after jumping through all the signup and download navigation hoops, I couldn't even get the download link to un-gray itself out for me. Is bidirectional macOS to macOS clipboard implemented there? IDK and I cannot tell.
I used to run a macos vm under proxmox, and I just used screen sharing to remote in from my apple desktop. Copy/paste of even complicated stuff works fine between the apple desktop and the vm desktop. Also drag and drop files, etc
So if I wanted to run Windows ARM on an Apple Silicon Mac, what's the best option(s) that make full use of the hypervisor? I'm aware of UTM [0] but the second paragraph of the article makes it seem like UTM is a software emulator (that doesn't take advantage of the hypervisor?)
I need to run a few utilities that only work on Windows and those work fine on Windows for ARM under UTM. These utilities are built for Intel but run fine - Windows for ARM translates the code on the fly. It has a translation layer called "Prism."
Parallels and VMware still do implement their own graphics virtualisation (among other things) for Windows and Linux guests on Apple silicon, and in my experience Parallels still works better than the alternatives for Windows.
What a lovely technical article for those of us that haven't followed it, thanks! I was thinking this might be about how Parallels does not have copy-and-paste for M1-on-M1 macOS-on-macOS virtualization, which is definitely "thinking different" compared to all other desktop virtualization that I have encountered.
TLDR: macOS virtualization is as fast as native due to hypervisor support, with free but limited driver support thanks to virtio. MacOS guests are limited to 2 at a time, and cannot use iCloud services or log in to the App Store.
Also FYI:
- launch times are fast enough for serverless
- you can restore snapshots for macOS guests but not for Linux
- Apple's open-source container support is built on Virtualization, making it a much more secure option than Docker
What's needs investigating is access to the secure enclave. You can login with an apple ID and use enclave API's; it's not clear if this is emulated or handled using the host enclave with a different scope - i.e., if this presents any security issues. To be conservative, one might avoid logging in using an Apple ID with sensitive information in an automated/CI context.
Howard Oakley is a highly respected technical writer. I subscribe to his site's RSS because of the fine writing which has had a consistent voice since well before GPT was released.
TFA does not contain the word "copy", but copy-paste (shared clipboard) support stands out strongly to me as being "different" in Apple Silicon virtualization at this time.
TFA does mention the word "clipboard", but the containing sentence, while perhaps technically correct, seems a bit misleading, as follows: "As implemented in macOS (both as guest and host), there are also extensions to support keyboard and pointing devices, a shared clipboard, and high-performance graphics with Metal and GPU support." As I understand it, even if those extensions "exist", what good are they if they are not adopted?:
- If you virtualize macOS within macOS on Apple Silicon using UTM, you cannot copy paste between systems reliably (bidirectional shared clipboard is very, very fragile; "can" work a little but is essentially fully broken/unreliable).
- If you virtualize macOS within macOS on Apple Silicon using Parallels (often considered a best-choice solution), you cannot copy paste between systems at all (bidirectional shared clipboard is an explicit non-feature at this time).
Thus, if you want bidirectional clipboard, on a macOS host, you'll have to run a *nix (seems to work) or maybe Win (I haven't tried) guest OS.
I would have tried VMWare Fusion (free for personal use), but after jumping through all the signup and download navigation hoops, I couldn't even get the download link to un-gray itself out for me. Is bidirectional macOS to macOS clipboard implemented there? IDK and I cannot tell.
Not the same thing, but...
I used to run a macos vm under proxmox, and I just used screen sharing to remote in from my apple desktop. Copy/paste of even complicated stuff works fine between the apple desktop and the vm desktop. Also drag and drop files, etc
So if I wanted to run Windows ARM on an Apple Silicon Mac, what's the best option(s) that make full use of the hypervisor? I'm aware of UTM [0] but the second paragraph of the article makes it seem like UTM is a software emulator (that doesn't take advantage of the hypervisor?)
0. https://mac.getutm.app
I need to run a few utilities that only work on Windows and those work fine on Windows for ARM under UTM. These utilities are built for Intel but run fine - Windows for ARM translates the code on the fly. It has a translation layer called "Prism."
Running Windows under UTM on macOS was (and might still be) the fastest way to run Windows on ARM.
Parallels and VMware still do implement their own graphics virtualisation (among other things) for Windows and Linux guests on Apple silicon, and in my experience Parallels still works better than the alternatives for Windows.
UTM does both. hypervisor for ARM, qemu for other archs
What a lovely technical article for those of us that haven't followed it, thanks! I was thinking this might be about how Parallels does not have copy-and-paste for M1-on-M1 macOS-on-macOS virtualization, which is definitely "thinking different" compared to all other desktop virtualization that I have encountered.
TLDR: macOS virtualization is as fast as native due to hypervisor support, with free but limited driver support thanks to virtio. MacOS guests are limited to 2 at a time, and cannot use iCloud services or log in to the App Store.
Also FYI:
- launch times are fast enough for serverless
- you can restore snapshots for macOS guests but not for Linux
- Apple's open-source container support is built on Virtualization, making it a much more secure option than Docker
What's needs investigating is access to the secure enclave. You can login with an apple ID and use enclave API's; it's not clear if this is emulated or handled using the host enclave with a different scope - i.e., if this presents any security issues. To be conservative, one might avoid logging in using an Apple ID with sensitive information in an automated/CI context.
AI slop from the looks of it. The title is a clickbait also.
Howard Oakley is a highly respected technical writer. I subscribe to his site's RSS because of the fine writing which has had a consistent voice since well before GPT was released.
Can you explain from what exactly "Virtualisation ... is different" then?
I'm not GP, but I assumed it was a play on Apple's "Think different" marketing mantra
You don't know much about Mac bloggers then.