MacOS in a VM?

General
1

Hi,
I have a license for Microtonic (SonicCharge, to create sounds and send them to a PO32 MicroTonic).
I cannot get it to work with Wine (I tried PlayOnLinux and Bottles). I also have a ReMarkable and that software doesn’t work either with Wine.
So, would it be easy to run MacOS in a VM to use those programs there?

I think I could use a Docker for that? I don’t understand layering or BoxBudy or stuff like that, are that options for installing a VM?
It may be a stupid question, but with all those “containers” is that like you could make a “MacOS” container?

I do want to make an effort (feel free to point me in the right direction), but it’s not important enough to learn a lot of programs and code. Does that make sense?

2

OCI containers (docker, podman etc…) run using the hosts kernel so you cannot run other operating systems in a container without further emulation. I think it is possible, but not recommended or easy. Your best bet for running another OS is to use virtual machines, but I don’t think you can run macos in a VM without violating Apples EULA…but im not sure about this.

I would do a more general web search for getting macos working in a vm and then come back here if you have uBlue specific issues getting it working.

I have never set that up for macos so I cannot offer any more specific advice on that front.

3

You can run macOS in a VM, the EULA breaking part is to acquire a macOS image and running it without using a real Mac.

4

Yes, but not Docker Desktop

just a quick note bc i was confused by that fact when I found out

5

Thank you @matthew ,
I did first do a websearch and found you need an emulator like Qemu or Quickemu. I didn’t find any Flatpak emulators except for game consoles or wine.
I also found a Docker solution that seems interesting. But I don’t really understand the difference between all those containered or sandboxed solutions (Flatpaks and Docker both are a form of container, isn’t it? And an emulator is also a form a container?).
Therefore, I wanted to ask here first, then I would inform myself more in the details of the proposed solution. Instead of having to learn all those things and THEN decide which I would need…

EDIT:
Sorry, that question was already answered by Matthew. Read it again now…

6

You can run real Windows or macOS in a docker container, and use a web browser to view and interact with the desktop. I’ve been using it to run Win11 and a piece of software I need, and it’s been working well for me.
I might try the macOS setup to run Curio, a macOS application without equal.

1 Like
7

Thank you @JohnAtl . How do I install Docker? I searched the web and this forum, but I didn’t see an easy guide. I’m not sure, do I need to go in developer mode for that?

I’m happy if you could point me to the correct information, I don’t want to burden you to explain everything.

8

Yeah, probably switching to developer mode would be the first step.
Then create a folder somewhere and save the docker compose file inside that folder to a compose.yaml file.
This is what mine looks like. I have added a couple of volumes, which makes those folders available from within the virtual machine. I also added a DISK_SIZE, RAM_SIZE, and CPU_CORES. I had to remove the VERSION (as found in their compose file) to make it work.

services:
  macos:
    image: dockurr/macos
    container_name: macos
    environment:
      DISK_SIZE: "200G"
      RAM_SIZE: "64G"
      CPU_CORES: "12"
    devices:
      - /dev/kvm
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    ports:
      - 8006:8006
      - 5900:5900/tcp
      - 5900:5900/udp
    stop_grace_period: 2m
    volumes:
      - /mnt/tank/vms:/storage
      - /home/john/Public:/shared

Then from the folder that the compose.yaml file is in, do this:

docker compose up

The magic will happen, and you can open a web browser and go to the address localhost:8006, and you should see macOS booting up into setup.
From there, follow the instructions at the FAQ for creating the boot disk, running install, etc.

1 Like