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VMware Virtualization Update - late and not worth waiting for!

haralds

haralds

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 3, 2014
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1,266
Silicon Valley, CA
The VMware Product Manager is confident that they can deliver a Tech Preview BY THE END OF THIS YEAR!
You read correctly, Parallels Desktop is shipping as a release and VMware will be diligently working for many more months.

Will they make up for it by delivering the hoped for X86 emulation? No, "running x86 operating systems on Apple silicon is not something we are planning to deliver with this project."

They "can’t wait to get it in the hands of every Apple silicon Mac owner." But this one will just keep using Parallels Desktop shipping now and working great.

I imagine VMware Fusion will be of use moving configured VMs to ARM based ESX data centers, but practically even that is not really a big deal. We generally build and configure in situ with preconfigured systems. Much faster to spin up instances that way than transferring GIGs to the data center.

More here: Fusion on Apple Silicon: Progress Update
 
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It’s interesting though that they are confirming that they’ve had no internal talks with Microsoft about licensing Windows 10 on Arm for use with Apple Silicon. I think most people here who are interested in this topic will find that pretty surprising.

As for VMWare, yeah I agree, I’m not seeing much of an upside. If you want to run Linux in a VM you can already do that with various free products or by buying Parallels. QEmu 6.0.0 just came out and I’ll be looking at it on my M1 MacBook Air later today or tomorrow. Much more interesting than VMWare.
 
I used VMware since the pre 1.0 Workstation beta. Sad to move away from it, but times change. They used to be great, then there was some neglect, then they moved the team to India and it has been ok, but not stunning.
 
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Parallels is not running x86 operating systems on Apple Silicon either, though, is it? It runs the ARM version of Windows (which does its own x86 translation).
 
Internaut said:
I'm surprised this is so hard for VMWare. Sounds like they've been forced to do a complete rewrite.
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I doubt if that was the problem, more like they didn't get serious about the M1, and still don't think there's enough of them to market a version of Fusion for them.

And since they are only supporting Linux with this new version, they're right, they wont sell many copies.
 
jdb8167 said:
It’s interesting though that they are confirming that they’ve had no internal talks with Microsoft about licensing Windows 10 on Arm for use with Apple Silicon. I think most people here who are interested in this topic will find that pretty surprising.

As for VMWare, yeah I agree, I’m not seeing much of an upside. If you want to run Linux in a VM you can already do that with various free products or by buying Parallels. QEmu 6.0.0 just came out and I’ll be looking at it on my M1 MacBook Air later today or tomorrow. Much more interesting than VMWare.
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So, there is a free product that will allow me to run Linux in a VM without booting (like Parallels)? If so, what is the best/most stable choice for this?
 
Was hoping that VMware's disapproval of the way Parallels is supporting Windows 10 on ARM meant they had something better "legally" coming, like supporting regular Windows 10 licenses with some kind of x86-64 translation engine.
 
VMware may have had to do a complete rewrite as Parallels uses Apple's M1 hardware virtualization and MacOS API (Adaptive Hypervisor). VMware uses kext on the x86 version. So they either port it over or rewrite to support Apple's API.
 
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BTW, I am a long time VMware Fusion user and I had to move away to Parallels as I had no choice with my M1 MBA. So far I am loving the experience. VMware had a good thing going but unfortunately they have fallen behind, and I don't think they'll recover. Anyone using Parallels Desktop has no reason whatsoever to go (back) to VMware Fusion unless they offer something so out of the ordinary (like x86 emulation) that blows away anything we have with Parallels.
 
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kundanno said:
BTW, I am a long time VMware Fusion user and I had to move away to Parallels as I had no choice with my M1 MBA. So far I am loving the experience. VMware had a good thing going but unfortunately they have fallen behind, and I don't think they'll recover. Anyone using Parallels Desktop has no reason whatsoever to go (back) to VMware Fusion unless they offer something so out of the ordinary (like x86 emulation) that blows away anything we have with Parallels.
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Makes me all the more convinced I should stay with my 2020 Intel Mac Mini. I switched from Parallels a few years ago. I much prefer Fusion.
 
leons said:
So, there is a free product that will allow me to run Linux in a VM without booting (like Parallels)? If so, what is the best/most stable choice for this?
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UTM. https://mac.getutm.app

I'm looking at it where they are with respect to QEMU 6.0. It looks like they are working on it but haven't released anything yet. I'm trying to build it right now with QMEU 6.0.0. If not, I'll have to wait for their update.
 
kundanno said:
VMware uses kext on the x86 version. So they either port it over or rewrite to support Apple's API.
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VMware Fusion 12 uses the same Apple hypervisor framework in Big Sur. In Catalina, Fusion uses its own hypervisor.
 
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jdb8167 said:
UTM. https://mac.getutm.app

I'm looking at it where they are with respect to QEMU 6.0. It looks like they are working on it but haven't released anything yet. I'm trying to build it right now with QMEU 6.0.0. If not, I'll have to wait for their update.
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UTM never works for me. It either doesn't install or it never sees drives.

QEMU, however, I've compiled and patched myself with success. It's slow.
 
It does seem like the end of the road for Fusion. There is little that its adding and the market will be gone by the time they release. This appears to be a full year post M1 launch. It is kind of sad that the product has ended up this way.
 
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tommiy said:
It does seem like the end of the road for Fusion. There is little that its adding and the market will be gone by the time they release. This appears to be a full year post M1 launch. It is kind of sad that the product has ended up this way.
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Agreed and you are right, they have so little to add to the market. VMWare is getting seperated from Dell and will probably run as datacenter and corp from here.
 
The ironic thing is I need both solutions. VMWare has always been better for Linux and poorer for Windows. I'm more on the Linux side for dev. I will say, Docker is making more strides and I think a better choice there. I read the blog and I think they are seeing the same I am with Parallels where it can boot a lot of VMs with less resources. Anyway I think I'll stay with Parallels unless the 12 licenses will carry over. I won't upgrade them if it's required.
 
drsox said:
Makes me all the more convinced I should stay with my 2020 Intel Mac Mini. I switched from Parallels a few years ago. I much prefer Fusion.
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If running Windows or x86 is a priority then I think it is smart to stick with Intel Macs for now.
 
thedocbwarren said:
UTM never works for me. It either doesn't install or it never sees drives.

QEMU, however, I've compiled and patched myself with success. It's slow.
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It's not slow if you use the hypervisor mode and run Arm64 Linux. It isn't emulating the CPU then, just the hardware.
 
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