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slgarwood
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

New MacBook Pro M2 Max + Ventura 13.2.1 (22D68) = Fusion crashes

VMWare 13.0.1 crashes frequently when starting Linux install. Happens on OpenSUSE, Fedora. All Linux systems are Arm64. I have the crash data saved if anyone in Fusion support ever wants it.

Does not happen on Parallels Desktop 18.

 

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Are you following the instructions in the unofficial guide to do the install?

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

I've found that Fusion support engineers rarely takes a look at bugs posted here. If you want VMware to look at what you have, I'd open up a support request if you can (new or upgrade Fusion licenses come with 30 days of complimentary support).

It's rare that we've seen a crash of Fusion itself (many of us here have been working on Fusion on Apple Silicon since the first tech preview, and crashing hasn't been a widely reported problem). 

That being said, what is the crash error message that you're experiencing? Have you taken a look in the vmware.log file contained in the VM's bundle to see if there is anything there that might give a clue as to what's going on. (if you post both it and the mksSandbox.log file found in the bundle to a reply to this thread, we can take a look at it and see if anything looks strange).

What versions of OpenSUSE and Fedora are you using?

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

you got a link to the unofficial guide? I had it but  lost it in the move to M2 Mac

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slgarwood
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Never mind I found it here ... it says Tech Preview - I am not running tech preview .... VMware 13.0.1 downloaded from here. Ventura 13.2.1 as shipped on machine. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed 13 March 2023 (it's a rolling release). Fedora 37.1.7 (very up to date)

Logs don't say much.

 

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

The latest version of the unofficial Companion Guide can be found here: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Documents/The-Unofficial-Fusion-13-for-Apple-Silicon...

If the guide you have is talking about the Tech Preview, then it is an old version that pre dates the release of Fusion 13. 

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

I’m running up to date Fedora 37 and Tumbleweed as well and haven’t seen any crashing at all.

Do I understand you correctly when you say that you’re crashing while installing Linux? If so, can you post the installation ISO names so I can download them and run those installers to see if I can reproduce what you’re seeing?

You also say you don’t see this under Parallels. Do you have both Parallels and Fusion installed on this Mac? 

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

I got things running for now - OpenSUSE Tumbleweed current installs and runs fine (even with KDE. Just don't turn on "3D Acceleration" in VMWare settings. Fedora seems fine. The magical incantations needed to put together any Canonical product (Ubuntu and its variants) is just too much of a PITA for now. OpenSUSE KDE works and also runs ok on my Inter based server (and for better or worse OpenSUSE has settled on Btrfs as their file system of choice).

Many thanks for all the suggestions and the Unofficial manual. Because of the help I don't have to throw dollars at Parallels.

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal


@slgarwood wrote:

The magical incantations needed to put together any Canonical product (Ubuntu and its variants) is just too much of a PITA for now.


Agreed, and it's been like that since day 1 of the first Fusion Tech Preview on Apple Silicon. For some inexplicable reason they can't seem to build kernels that work on Fusion like every other distro does. It's even more puzzling since the "mainline" kernels that they build directly from the Linux source trees with their configuration files work fine. So there's something else they put in their kernels or configurations that isn't quite right.

I just updated my Tumbleweed VM from snapshot 20230303 to 20230313 and have 3D acceleration enabled. I haven't seen any crashing.

I've downloaded the latest Tumbleweed installer and I'm going to see if I can repro what you're seeing. If you post your vmx file for Tumbleweed I can run my tests with the same VM config as you.

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

I've got a MBP 16" M2 with 32 GB running Ventura 13.2.1.  I'm trying to instally the  Jammy Desktop ISO (taken via the link on p30 for 22.04.2 LTS Desktop), and getting absolutely no feedback from the install.  I let it run for over an hour and never got to the point where the virtual machine menu says 'Linux is running'. 

Should I backoff and use the server and the documented process to turn a server into a desktop?

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

@slgarwood If you're interested in Ubuntu:

You might want to give 23.04 daily builds a look. (the link is in the Companion Guide). It won't be much longer before 22.10 won't be available any more. Canonical only supports interim (non-LTS) builds for 9 months, which means 22.10 will be kaput in July. They've gotten aggressive about removing the downloads for those interim releases.

I'm finding 23.04 isn't exhibiting the kernel issues that 22.10 has. It's running a pretty new 6.1 kernel that Canonical hasn't managed to mess up yet. You'll still have to "convert" Ubuntu Server into a Ubuntu Desktop-like environment by using the procedure in the Companion Guide. That's only because Canonical in their "infinite wisdom" refuses has decided not to release a Desktop version for arm64. (Fedora and OpenSUSE don't seem to have a problem with releasing a desktop version for arm64).

20.04.5 LTS and 22.04.2 LTS have cleaned up a lot of problems that Ubuntu had with their installers and kernels. At least they haven't found a way to break either of those yet (except don't try to run the HWE kernel of 22.04.5, use the stock 5.15 kernel. The HWE kernel has the same broken behavior as 22.10 but thankfully there's no reason to run it in a Fusion VM). 

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

@qsmgmt It's entirely possible that they've broken the Jammy desktop daily builds. I'm downloading it to see if I'm seeing what you are.

You may want to try the Jammy Server 22.04.2 release. They haven't updated the installer for that since I downloaded and tested it.

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

Score one for Canonical again 😠.  They broke the 22.04 Jammy daily build since I last tested it. They're probably using their screwed up 5.19 HWE kernel.

Go with the Server build, then "convert" that to Desktop. Don't try to boot the HWE kernel if offered by the 22.04.2 installer, Go with the stock kernel. 

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

Thanks for the input - I think I will take a pass on Ubuntu for a bit. I can do all I need to do (c++ compiles and some minor python scripting) with OpenSUSE and/or Fedora.

At least the move to ARM is progressing. I lived through the Motorola to Intel move and even further back I remember OS9 to OS X (I think I have a beta DVD for OS X 10.0 somewhere).

IMHO Apple lost the plot after Snow Leopard  I did beta testing for it - even got a 'hoodie' from them as a thank you. I doubt the current phone manufacturer (with a small computing sideline) would do that.

I will keep an eye on these forums and ev very so often give Ubuntu a try. 

I attached my OpenSUSE vmx file.

 

 

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

So question - which debian based distribution would you suggest as an alternative?  When I tried to get debian itself in Fusion I never could get the tools working.

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Technogeezer
Immortal
Immortal

Debian 11.6 works but no tools and/or console resizing. Installing a 'bullseye-backports' 5.19 or later kernel  and the tools also installed from bullseye-backports repo gives me console resizing, copy/paste and Fusion shared folders. I installed the linux-image-6.0.0-0.deb11.6-arm64/bullseye-backports per the instructions in the Companion Guide. (matter of fact - I copied and pasted the kernel image package from the VM to this reply)

Debian "bookworm/testing" (Debian 12 development version) runs a 6.1 kernel and tools/resizing seems to work.

 

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

I probably should start a new thread - exploring OpenSUSE with M2 and camera 🙂

So far OpenSUSE Tumbleweed "openSUSE-Tumbleweed-DVD-aarch64-Snapshot20230313-Media" works fine for me - VMWare tools and all. Just don't turn on 3D acceleration in the display settings. Oh and I am running KDE as opposed to Gnome. I just can't get into Gnome.

 

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