Native Virtualization For macOS | Hacker News Reader

Native Virtualization For macOS

veertu.com

84 pointsizik_e244 comments

Last time I tried Veertu it was crazy buggy. I emailed them a bunch of bug reports which, to their credit, they did acknowledge. It will be interesting to see if they're fixed.

Edit: No, they're not. The Ubuntu image, on my iMac, just flickers its window horribly and is unusable.

Edit 2: There are some improvements. The Debian image now boots! It boots into the installer, which is interesting. Doing a full GUI install right now.

Edit 3: The same flickering problem affects Debian after a GUI install. Shame.

This is a video I made earlier, demonstrating the problem: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4419997/Flicker.mp4

ubuntu 16.04.1 works fine. Very good graphical experience. Have you tried it?

Yes, that's what I was referring to. It seems to be hardware specific. On some Macs it's fine, on others (particularly newer ones, it seems) its unusable.

It is interesting, are you using the latest version from the App Store?

Yes.

Have you tried "Retina HDPI support" in Advanced VM settings?

Okay so it says "free" on the App Store. But the App store says there is $39.99 "Premium" version available.

I'm either an idiot or there is no obvious way to find out how the free version is crippled (without downloading and playing around with it). Nothing on the App store listing and nothing even on their website (!)

I'm so sick of these scummy tricks. Just be upfront with your value proposition and I'll either give you my money or I won't. Don't waste my time.

It's a trial that lets you install a number of OSes from pre-built images. It's $39 to unlock the ability to install from ISOs or import from Parallels, etc.

But I agree. Better to just charge for the damn thing.

They have a version that is just $40 for the whole thing called "Veertu for Business". But on top of that, $40 is a lot to pay for an app sight unseen, so they wanted to have a way of offering a "free trial" or test mode for free. They are VERY upfront about what the whole price is, and it's not a hidden ongoing charge. This is the best use of in-app purchases IMO.

Though to be fair, I've got an iOS app with the exact same business model, so I'm biased. :)

>They are VERY upfront about what the whole price is

You're kidding right? It doesn't mention the price anywhere on the site (but it does say "Download for free at the app store" front and center). In any other business that'd be considered a bait and switch.

There is a vague mention of the premium version in a single paragraph. Elsewhere they appear to go way out of their way not to mention it:

Developers can download various Linux distributions from Veertu Cloud Image Library and run VMs in few minutes, for no charge. Alternatively, they can also setup Windows VMs with ISO files. Windows 7 and higher version are supported. Users can also import existing VM images from VirtualBox, Fusion and Parallels.

That's weasel wording, plain and simple.

I agree though, it's better than a subscription pricing model. But to be honest I have no real quarrel with the model itself anyways - I just think they should be up front about the offer.

The Native app is free and there is an IN-app purchase for $39.99. There is also a full $39.99 version available as well.

I realize that. What I'm wondering is what you get for $39.99? Or put another way - how is the free version crippled?

There's nothing wrong with this business model by the way. It just want to know upfront what I'm getting (or not getting).

The free version lets you download and install Linux ISOs from their library.

The paid version lets you use your own Linux/Windows ISO and/or import a VMWare/Parallels/VirtualBox VM.

This is basically how they can offer a "free trial" on the app store.

I bought Veertu through the Mac app store on an early 2009 MacBook Pro. The CPU instructions used for native virtualization are not enabled on the machine. Despite not being compatible with the machine on which I was purchasing, and despite not having documentation on the app store purchase page about the limitations, it let me buy the app - which refused to function. When I requested a refund - after trying multiple times through Apple's horrific broken iTunes refund process - they denied the refund without explanation as to why they did not deem me worthy of a refund for the defective product they sold me.

Possibly if I had the time to spend hours phoning and finding someone to listen I could have gotten a refund.

My takeaway from the experience was a reminder that I was a terrible person for supporting the apple app store business model - a model which inches closer to being mandatory for developers every day.

I've got my purchases refunded multiple times on the AppStore just by writing "the app doesn't do what the description says".

I can't explain why you didn't get a refund, but there is a free version of Veertu you can try first, to make sure it works.

But it's crippled. I didn't want to waste my time evaluating a product other than the one which was interesting to me.

Well, seems like you ended up wasting even more time AND money.

How long between buying it and requesting a refund? I've never had an issue getting refunded through that simple form wizard but it's always been within 72 hours of purchase.

I tried within hours. And tried again multiple times with intervals on the order of weeks.

A dispute with you credit card if you paid by card ought to do the trick. If that doesn't work, Small Claims Court works well in most US states- it may be a pain, but if more consumers would use it in ridiculous cases like this, companies would improve.

While I agree a credit card might theoretically offer recourse, in practice I think what would happen is I would end up locked out of my iTunes account and I would discover that all my past "purchases" would be better described as "donations".

There seems to be an issue with Apple refund process. We are escalating it with Apple.

I understand your pain! Sounds like someone might be looking into your refund, I hope it works out!

I think this is more the fault of Apple than the devs of this. So far my experiences as a developer with the app store have been horrific, and I've heard many horror stories far worse than mine.

I've also had several occasions to deal with the IRS on complex issues. In my experience the IRS is far more responsive, has much better customer service, and is generally better organized than the Apple app store.

To Veertu's authors: sell it on your web site and I'll give you $39 without Apple's cut just to help keep the app store marginalized.

I've also decided I will not be buying another iOS device, ever, and if Apple tries to ram the app store any harder on OS X I will be leaving Mac.

The lean approach is interesting - I like.

Unfortunately veertu is way behind Parallels and VMWare in terms of features, compatibility, comfort, etc. I wouldn't recommend it for productive workloads, yet.

It's a trap! Also, VirtualBox is a lot better than you remember it.

Doesn't use the native and fast hypervisor.

The native hypervisor doesn't support connecting USB devices to the VM, though.

Web (and other) developers usually don't connect USB devices to the VM anyway, through.

I'm not sure why the downvotes. Do web developers using VMs for development connect USB devices to them?

Does the majority even run something like vagrant linux image with a GUI and mouse?

I don't think the downvotes were warranted. That said, I will be devils advocate here. I tend to develop on multiple machines, some of them windows.. so I like having a consistent experience. Jetbrains tools on a Linux desktop (in a VM on each host) offer that. I then keep my working git repos on a USB stick and mount them into the VM.

There's ways to work around that though.. such as host the USB over SMB and then mount the share inside of the VM.. or use a cloud service of some kind.. but it's a bit more clunky.

USB passthrough seems like a basic feature of a hypervisor IMO.

Actually?

That's kind of sad.

That makes no sense. The native hypervisor only takes care of emulating the CPU. Everything else, including USB emulation and redirection, is done in userspace.

Last January [1] there was a report of Veertu violating QEMU's GPL license. There seem to be quite a few users in this thread, could anyone confirm them?

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-01/msg057...

I am from Veertu. We don't have GPL code in our hypervisor. We have BSD And LGPL, and if you are interested in the source code, we are in the process of open sourcing our core hypervisor.

How do you get the source to the LGPL components?

As part of the process of open sourcing the core hypervisor we are updating the site with the lgpl library sources.

It's about time, Veertu has been using a lot of LGPL code without attribution or any visible attempts to comply with LGPL license requirements for the many components used. Hopefully you guys did a true clean room implementation of the GPL components of QEMU.

Happy Veertu user + plus nice vagrant integration [0]

The performance is on par with native Docker for OSX and for sure faster than VirtualBox / VMWARE.

[0] https://veertu.com/knowledgebase/vagrant-setup-instructions/

That's because "native" docker for OS X uses the same built-in Apple hypervisor under the hood to host the Linux kernel.

Virtualizing Linux in Veertu and then installing Docker on it is basically the same thing.

downloaded ubuntu gnome 16.04 and it's hogging my CPU really badly. VMWare is way more light weight than this, at the moment. Lots of work to do.

How does this work, being able to be downloaded from the app store and all?

It uses Hypervisor.framework, much like xhyve does, the Mac port of bhyve.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Driver...

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