M1 Apple Silicon support not now - but in the future?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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Chis Ideas
Posts: 4
Joined: 14. Jul 2022, 07:55

M1 Apple Silicon support not now - but in the future?

Post by Chis Ideas »

It is really bad that currently neither Virtualbox, nor e.g. Parallels provide an engine on which an x86/x64 VM can be run.
Of course you can install Unbuntu or Windows 11 for ARM, But the existing engines do not work anymore.
That means that all installed licenses are lost, because a reinstallation will probably not work.

Maybe the VirtualBox team can cooperate with the existing x86 emulation projects?
These are:
UTM: https://mac.getutm.app/
{ irrelevant link deleted by mod }
QEMU: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/su ... h.2272354/

To be honest, I would not have bought a Macbook with M1 if I knew that Rosetta does not work with VirtualBox and I cannot run any x86 installation anymore on it.

Please check at developers side, if a cooperation, usage of code, from other projects is possible.
(I open up this issue because the existing thread is locked).

Thanks
Last edited by mpack on 18. Jul 2022, 13:49, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Delete link
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: M1 Apple Silicon support not now - but in the future?

Post by mpack »

Chis Ideas wrote:It is really bad that currently neither Virtualbox, nor e.g. Parallels provide an engine on which an x86/x64 VM can be run
...
To be honest, I would not have bought a Macbook with M1 if I knew that Rosetta does not work with VirtualBox and I cannot run any x86 installation anymore on it.
I myself don't accept any share of the blame for your lack of research. It should have been very obvious that, being a hypervisor and not a CPU emulator, VirtualBox requires an x86 CPU.

I'd be surprised if the devs have much interest in CPU emulation projects since, as stated, VirtualBox is not an emulator.

p.s. Of your three links only the first seems semi-relevant, though even there they mention that emulation gives lesser performance, plus they don't claim to be the developers. The third of your links is about virtualizing the ARM port of Windows 10, so nothing to do with emulating x86. The second link was for some kind of third party package manager for MacOS. Since it had no relevance I deleted it.
DrBigJim
Posts: 1
Joined: 11. Feb 2022, 15:52

Re: M1 Apple Silicon support not now - but in the future?

Post by DrBigJim »

It does seem like the developers of VirtualBox are not interested in porting VirtualBox to Apple Silicon because they are entrenched into into the intel architecture. Of course with WWDC 2022, you could easily build a virtual machine on your using using the Virtualization and Hypervisor frameworks. Of course that would mean you would lose your intel architecture virtual machines behind in the process. Porting code from intel architecture to ARM architecture is a lot of work and many other developers have done the work and build successful products in the process. If you want to purchase a M1 based Mac, you will need to rebuild your virtual machines and leave virtual box behind. In my experience with most virtualization solutions, VirtualBox comes dead last.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: M1 Apple Silicon support not now - but in the future?

Post by mpack »

DrBigJim wrote:because they are entrenched into into the intel architecture.
If you can indicate some alternative standardized architecture with a large market then by all means speak up. In the MacOS market the only virtualization solution that has ever mattered is the ability to run WinTel code on Intel-based Macs. There is no money in anything else.

All covered in the existing topic: M1 ARM Macs: Will Virtualbox be ported ?.

Locking this, otherwise it will inevitably retread the same ground.
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