VMware Fusion 12 running on Apple Silicon

[Sjd181969]

Hi

Will Fusion ever operate on macs running on Apple Silicon chips as it’s important that I can continue to run my x64 Linux vm images if I upgrade to a new Apple silicon based Mac 

I couldn’t see any official comment on this from VMware 

[useralreadyused]

As you completely miss the point.  Major version upgrades of software are supposed to introduce new features, vastly improve the architecture under the hood, improve the interface, etc.  Maybe you are too young to remember those days.  New versions of VMware fusion are nothing more than patches to make it compatible with the latest OS X.  It's pure greed.

[nobody456]

Sorry but version numbers are just that – numbers.

What matters is that $50 a year keeps me running.

[EMR]

Your rant is pointless. VMware will obviously release an M1-compatible version of Fusion 12 in a matter of weeks.

[useralreadyused]

obviously!

[ColoradoMarmot]

I really wonder how people expect VMWare to fund development when Apple makes major changes in the underlying operating system?  They aren't a charity - developers cost money, and it takes significant time and effort to keep up with the pace of OS releases.  Big Sur more than most as they completely had to re-plumb the system to use the Apple Hypervisor.

This is one of those rare cases where I wish they'd just move to a subscription model.

[useralreadyused]

Sure, architectural changes are one thing, that's expected, but other programs manage to stay compatible with OS X with simple patches.  That's where I'm coming from.  Too old school I suppose.  And I don't think Vmware has problems funding anything.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Other programs don't integrate with the OS at a deep level like Fusion does.  Microsoft Office doesn't really care that the entire hypervisor framework, boot image system, recovery partition, etc were all changed.  Fusion does.

[useralreadyused]

And none of those things you listed have changed THAT drastically version-over-version.  Take a look at this chart.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2088571

If you're seriously going on about huge, sweeping changes in EVERY OS X version, that is false.  They release a new one ever year.  They don't ALL go through a drastic metamorphosis otherwise nothing old would ever work.

The biggest thing was jumping from 32 bit to 64 only, and that was fairly recently.  It's clear that this is a profit motive.

[ColoradoMarmot]

VMWare doesn't charge for every release.  11.5 was free.  8.5 was free.  And now Fusion player is free for personal use.

But big sur is a massive change.  Apple changed the entire boot mechanism, depreciated kernel extensions, implemented an entirely new hypervisor framework, changed the recovery system, and more.  Those things take a lot of development effort, but don't make it on a new 'feature' list, because they aren't user-facing features.  Big Sur compatibility itself is a huge feature.

And there's nothing wrong with a profit motive.  Without that, we wouldn't have Fusion at all!

[useralreadyused]

Well, I was never talking about X.5 releases, only 11.0, 10.0, 9, etc, the ones that they charge money for.  Let's not move the goalposts please.

Some OS X versions had major architecture changes, but you can't convince anyone that they ALL did, because it isn't true.

[nobody456]

Don't like the $50 a year? Pick another product.

[useralreadyused]

Tough, I get to have opinions, and I get to vocalize them on public forums.

Don't like my opinion?  Go read another forum.

[ColoradoMarmot]

You just made my point.  Not every OS release triggers a major fusion release, and the dot 5's show that.

For business use, it's a cheap product for what it does (less that the price of a latte a month). For personal use it's now free.    Seems reasonable to me.

[VirtualMac2009]

Developer Successfully Virtualizes Windows for Arm on M1 Mac
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/27/developer-successfully-virtualizes-windows-on-m1

[SvenGus]

Another interesting article, partly focused on virtualization and emulation, here (source: OSNews):

https://steipete.com/posts/apple-silicon-m1-a-developer-perspective

BTW, being able to continue to run also existing x64 OS X/macOS and Linux VMs on M1 Macs would require emulation: maybe it could even be done with acceptable speed*, given the really excellent performance of the M1 - who knows...

(* After all, 15-20 years ago Connectix/Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac was a full x86 emulator on PowerPC Macs, and quite successful: its performance wasn’t certainly stellar, but definitely more than usable; and today’s M1 is light-years ahead of any PPC processor of those times...)

[VirtualMac2009]

SvenGus, you said:

"being able to continue to run also existing x64 OS X/macOS… VMs on M1 Macs would require emulation".

But Rosetta 2 allows to do that without emulation. And up to macOS 10.14 Mojave allows to run also 32-bit applications. Right?

As Rosetta 1 (back in 2006) allowed to run PowerPC applications in Intel x86 Macs.

[SvenGus]

All correct, except that Rosetta 2 doesn’t support running virtual machines, at least for the time being: so, if you want to run a traditional x86/x64 OS in a virtual machine on an M1 Mac, you need full emulation, as the architectures are different (ARM64 for the host and Intel x86/x64 for the guest), and thus you cannot simply virtualise it; virtualisation on the M1 is possible only for ARM OSes (for example, Windows for ARM, Linux for ARM and macOS 11, but not previous OS X/macOS versions).

[nobody456]

Rosetta 2 is limited to a subset of x86 code: user-level only, not OS-level, not HV-level, and no AVX/AVX2/AVX512. [1]

As such, Fusion/x86 won't run on top of Rosetta 2.

Is it possible to provide full x86 translation? Absolutely.

Will Apple do so? Probably not.

Will VMware do so? Probably not.

Will Microsoft do so? Probably not.

Not because of technical reasons.

But business and legal reasons. [2]

So who will do it? Try e.g. QEMU.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/about_the_rosetta_translation_environment

[2] https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/x86-approaching-40-still-going-strong

[SvenGus]

[My last post disappeared after editing (also happened before): there must be something wrong, here...]

[EMR]

Yes, I've noticed your prior message disappeared. Oddly enough, I received an email with its content, and I think your reflections on Qemu were correct. For the sake of completeness, and supposing the original content was deleted by some operating oddity, I'll quote you now:

BTW, an optimised QEMU, packaged as a macOS app bundle with a nice GUI to manage VMs and a menu bar item, would probably be quite successful for those needing legacy Intel OS emulation on M1 Macs (no need to reinvent the wheel, thus): once there was Q.app (quite basic, but promising), but it has been discontinued a long time ago; and today sadly there are no Mac-specific QEMU GUI frontends, thus making it more difficult to use (needs command line).

VMware or Parallels could maybe even base a "Lite" or "Legacy" version of Fusion or Desktop on QEMU, and sell it as a native universal macOS app: who knows, perhaps it could be convenient from a business point of view...?

More likely that some independent developer makes something like that, however...