Catalina Virtual Machine

[Sriram Sridhar]

Hey guys I'm planning to do some ios app development stuff but I have windows laptop. I'm planning to use virtualization software to run mac (tried to hackintosh and didn't work).

My Pc Specs is

Asus TUF fx505ge 

i5 8300h, 8gb, 1050ti, 256gb ssd and 1tb hdd

In windows my basic ram consumption is 3-3.5gb. I'm planing to install low weight linux on hdd and run vmware or virtualbox on top of it so that I will have some ram.

I need to know which linux distro will be suitable and if I run linux and vmware on hdd will that causes reduction in speed while using compared to running on vmware on ssd and windows.

[Windows7ge]

You should be able to use any Linux distro that supports QEMU and the i440FX chipset. Many popular choices includes Ubuntu, PopOS, Lubuntu, Manjaro, and CentOS.

 

I don't have knowledge on how to set it up but Linus made a video giving an overview of how it's done on Manjaro:

I don't think they used Catalina though and I don't know if Apple has done anything to that version to make this method of hackintosh-ing not work.

[lal12]

I have a MacOS virtual machine running on my server, it wasn't mucht harder to set it up than any other VM. I think I used this guide here: https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM

However instead of using their script to start the VM (headless.sh in Step 2b) I setup my own libvirt xml config based on their scripts.

Here is my config:

<domain type='kvm' xmlns:qemu='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/qemu/1.0'>
  <name>macos-kvm</name>
  <uuid>d06d502a-904a-4b34-847d-debf1a3d76c7</uuid>
  <memory unit='KiB'>8388608</memory>
  <currentMemory unit='KiB'>4194304</currentMemory>
  <vcpu placement='static'>4</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-2.11'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/srv/macos-kvm-repo/firmware/OVMF_CODE.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/srv/macos-kvm-repo/firmware/OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic/>
    <vmport state='off'/>
  </features>
  <cpu>
    <topology sockets='1' cores='4' threads='1'/>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset='utc'>
    <timer name='rtc' tickpolicy='catchup'/>
    <timer name='pit' tickpolicy='delay'/>
    <timer name='hpet' present='no'/>
  </clock>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>destroy</on_crash>
  <pm>
    <suspend-to-mem enabled='no'/>
    <suspend-to-disk enabled='no'/>
  </pm>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64</emulator>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
      <source file='/srv/macos-kvm-repo/ESP.qcow2'/>
      <target dev='sda' bus='sata'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
      <source file='/srv/macos-kvm-repo/BaseSystem.img'/>
      <target dev='sdb' bus='sata'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='1'/>
    </disk>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
      <source file='/srv/macosx.qcow2'/>
      <target dev='sdc' bus='sata'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='2'/>
    </disk>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-ehci1'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1d' function='0x7'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci1'>
      <master startport='0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1d' function='0x0' multifunction='on'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci2'>
      <master startport='2'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1d' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci3'>
      <master startport='4'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1d' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='sata' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1f' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='0' model='pcie-root'/>
 <interface type='network'>
      <mac address='ab:cd:00:01:12:23'/>
      <source network='default'/>
      <model type='e1000-82545em'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
    <serial type='pty'>
      <target type='isa-serial' port='0'>
        <model name='isa-serial'/>
      </target>
    </serial>
    <console type='pty'>
      <target type='serial' port='0'/>
    </console>
    <input type='tablet' bus='usb'>
      <address type='usb' bus='0' port='1'/>
    </input>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <input type='keyboard' bus='usb'>
      <address type='usb' bus='0' port='2'/>
    </input>
    <input type='keyboard' bus='ps2'/>
    <graphics type='spice' port='6000' autoport='no' listen='0.0.0.0' keymap='de' passwd='mysupersecretpasswordplsdonthackme!'>
      <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/>
      <channel name='main' mode='insecure'/>
      <channel name='record' mode='insecure'/>
      <image compression='auto_glz'/>
      <jpeg compression='auto'/>
      <zlib compression='auto'/>
      <streaming mode='filter'/>
      <mouse mode='client'/>
      <clipboard copypaste='yes'/>
      <filetransfer enable='yes'/>
    </graphics>
    <sound model='ich9'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1b' function='0x0'/>
    </sound>
    <video>
      <model type='qxl' ram='65536' vram='65536' vgamem='16384' heads='1' primary='yes'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x0'/>
    </video>
    <memballoon model='none'/>
  </devices>
  <qemu:commandline>
    <qemu:arg value='-cpu'/>
    <qemu:arg value='Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+invtsc,vmware-cpuid-freq=on,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2$
    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>
    <qemu:arg value='isa-applesmc,osk=ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc'/>
    <qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
    <qemu:arg value='type=2'/>
  </qemu:commandline>
</domain>