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joe1776
Contributor
Contributor

New VMware Fusion Public Tech Preview for Apple Silicon released

Hey,

 

yesterday was a new VMware Fusion Public Tech Preview 21H1 released.

 
VMware-Fusion-e.x.p-19431034_arm64.dmg
File size: 83.56 MB
File type: dmg
Release Date: 2022-03-10
Build Number: 19431034
 
Does anybody know what changed?
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gringley
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

The tech preview guide has not been updated so I guess we wait?  I found "21H1" a weird choice also...

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joe1776
Contributor
Contributor

Hopefully it will be updated soon.

 

"21H1" is indeed a strange naming...

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

@Mikero had posted that it was coming along with a revised preview guide.

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Very minor bug fixes, bunch of platform code merges (tech debt cleanup, not user visible).

It does extend the trial period for quite a bit tho (way more than we needed, but hey).

I also updated the Testing Guide to include Windows 11 instructions, as well as some updates to Linux guests, where to get them, and some known issues there. (i.e. Ubuntu 5.16 kernel issue). If there is any feedback there, happy to make edits 😃

 

And yah, the 21H1 is a bit... silly... It's just the consequence of our branching and Download Group structure at the time.

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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gringley
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Troubles already.  When I click the link:

Not to fret, we made an easy link for this:

https://vmware.com/go/fusion-tp-guide

I get prompted to login to communities and then get a brown error message that I do not have permissions to the item:

You do not have sufficient privileges for this resource or its parent to perform this action.
Click your browser's Back button to continue.

 

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

The redirect needs updating (having internal issues with that presently...)

The link from the front of this community is valid tho:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-for-Apple-Silicon-Tech/Fusion-Tech-Preview-Testing-Guide/ta... 

 

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

Can this be installed over an existing TP installation or must the old version be deleted first?

Any improvements in networking included in those "minor bug fixes"? Networking is not what I'd call stable in the TP release? (or in Fusion on Intel either). As an example NAT networking will simply "go away" from time to time. The only way to fix it is to stop and restart Fusion. 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Hmmm....trying to boot 

https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/focal/daily-live/current/focal-desktop-arm64.iso

fails.  I get the EFI Stub errors then it hangs.

Was able to get Debian booted, but unable to install the tools (not a tar file error).

Ahh Linux.....

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

For Ubuntu Focal, did you try adding the "acpi=force" argument to the kernel boot parameters? (I'll download that and give it try to see if that fixes it)...

For Debian, try adding the "bullseye-backports" repo, and then installing open-vm-tools from that distribution (see my tips/techniques guide for instructions on how to do that) from those.

- Paul

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

I did add that line, didn't change the behavior, will try again though to make sure. Edit: Nope, can't get Focal to boot.  Will try the server version next. Edit: Nope, Server still hangs.

Jammy does boot, but it's incompatible with the software I need to run, so....

Thanks for the backports tip, got them installed, but still can't change resolution. 

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

Don;t use the daily builds of Focal noted in the TP Testing Guide - they don't boot.

This Server 20.04 LTS build does boot: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/20.04/release/ubuntu-20.04.4-live-server-arm64.iso 

Ubuntu is rapidly becoming my least favorite Linux distribution. They seem to break things frequently. I've found the other distros are much, much easier to work with.

The default kernel in Debian 11.2 is still a 5.10 kernel with no vmwgfx driver. You need to install the 5.15 kernel from bullseye-backports (also discussed in my tips/techniques guide).

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Ahh, didn't catch the kernel, that would explain why the drivers don't work.  Will give it a go.

And agreed completely on ubuntu.  If I can get debian working, I'm done with it.

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

I also dropped a PM to @Mikero asking about the Focal downloads  he posted in the TP Testing Guide and the difficulties we've seen.

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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cookieme
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

1. This update doesn't seem to come through the auto update mechanism in the previous TP release. Is this expected?

2. Any updates on the file sharing optimisation that needs to take place for aarch64?

3. What about automatic resolution changing?

When can we expect a final version that addresses the known issues above?

Thanks.

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

I just dragged my existing copy of Fusion to the trash and re-installed the new one. I don't think they're ready yet for an auto-update, and especially for a preview version.

I don't work for VMware but since @Mikero said there were minor updates, I wouldn't expect much to change, especially 2. and 3. I haven't noticed any difference in running it except that it's stopped nagging me about evaluation expiration.

And VMware is being typically tight lipped on when we might see a production release of Fusion that runs on Apple Silicon. 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
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aaaa13
Contributor
Contributor

I don't know......even Apple itself released a working VM sample project to run macOS on M1 using the Virtualization framework:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_macos_in_a_virtual_machine_on_apple...

I still don't get it why Fusion still can't have ARM macOS support until now. It's not 100% copy paste for sure, but......

I don't like PD, and yet Fusion is like an abandoned product day by day. I got that you guys can't make Windows work due to Microsoft EULA, but what's the reason for macOS?

Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

There is a thread in this forum that explains why VMware thinks macOS virtualization on ARM isn’t as easy as you might thinkCan you share any info about macOS guest support? 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

1, Yes.

2 and 3 sounds like Windows issues?  if so, then no.  If not, then they've stated we'll see at least one more tech preview before a GA release later this year.

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Um, I don't think that article applies to an M1 machine.  

One issue is that Apple doesn't make the big necessary to do the install on an M1 available for download.

And the apple hypervisor framework is rudimentary at best.....

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