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Comment by AegirLeet | Hacker News Reader

I recently wanted to test something on macOS, but I don't own a Mac. I kinda assumed that I could just type "macos vm image" into Google and download an official image for VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V or whatever from Apple's website. Nope.

Instead, I ended up reading through several third-party guides, downloading images from random people's Google Drives and feeding magic incantations to VBoxManage - only to end up with a slow, crashy, barely functional system. Of course, the thing I originally wanted to test wasn't working at all, because... who knows.

I'm really amazed at how shitty Apple's developer experience is for people who don't own a Mac. Well, I'm going to give this script a try tomorrow - maybe that will work, somehow.

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> I kinda assumed that I could just type "macos vm image" into Google and download an official image for VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V or whatever from Apple's website.

What gave you that idea?

That's how it works with Windows and obviously Linux. Why would a company not want to make it as easy as possible for people to try out, develop for and test on their OS?

Because their official stance is "there is no try. Buy a mac if you want to develop for mac". MacOS on any non-apple hardware is against the EULA so any VM you find is technically illegal. The OS sold on USB sticks for a while, but that stopped: the only way you get MacOS now is by buying a mac, and then using the app store to get new versions of MacOS when they come out.

Before I knew this I didn't know this.

The license for Windows' free downloadable VM images does not allow you to develop software.

https://windowsdev.azureedge.net/eulas/WindowsDeveloperVirtu...

"You may use the software in the virtual hard disk image only to demonstrate and internally evaluate it. You may not use the software for commercial purposes. You may not use the software in a live operating environment."

The original poster wanted to test something. Apple actively makes that difficult. Microsoft makes it very easy and actively supports it. Ex:

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

The license for those VMs:

"b. You may use the software for testing purposes only. You may not use the software for commercial purposes. You may not use the software in a live operating environment."

>> The original poster wanted to test something.

> The license for those VMs: "b. You may use the software for testing purposes only.

Basically you (and Microsoft) agree?

This was for a non-commercial hobby project and there was no actual development involved.

Even if using a Windows VM in that way violated some Microsoft license, I don't think I'd care much. It's not like Microsoft is gonna sue an individual using one of their VMs for an hour over some licensing technicality. I'm sure they'd care if this was in a commercial setting (and then I'd actually care about the license), but for personal, non-commercial use, I don't see it. Worst case scenario I'd actually buy a Windows license. At least for me, this is more about the technical ability to run an OS in a VM than about the legal details behind it.

Google "windows vm image" and see the first link.

Theres this https://www.macincloud.com, haven't used it myself but seems like it will do the job there's a few others around to. Search for "Mac in cloud"

The easiest way I did it was a certain Vagrant image.

Do you have more details or link? Like the grandparent comment, I have gone through so many incarnations of Google searches and guides and sketchy scripts just to wind up with a half-working mess if I get anything running at all

Not sure why I got downvotes for that but here ya go, I didnt share a link cause if you google / duckduckgo "MacOS Vagrant Image" it was the first result:

https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx

Once you pull it I open the virtualbox UI so I can get a GUI. I think it runs in headless but you can just click 'Show' or something to that effect.

Apple is not alone there. A lot of people don't realize, but Windows is (or at least for the longest time, was) in the same boat. You need to have a Windows machine to build Windows app.

I believe, but I might be wrong, a similar thing applies to a large number of Linux systems especially if you wish to build GUI apps.

P.S. Windows even used to require a paid version of their IDE Visual Studio for the longest time and a hefty subscription fee for MSDN. And, don't forget the concept of "Developer License" for things like SQL server.

Yeah no, this one is very Apple-specific. Just google "windows 10 vm image" and see what comes up. Obviously with Linux distros, getting images isn't a problem either.

I'm sure there's some dumb shit that MS does too, but Apple is completely alone in not even giving you any way to run their OS in a VM for development purposes.

As others have pointed out, those official MS VMs are for evaluation only. You are not legally allowed to use them for development. Of course, you could pay MS for a license and do your Windows development in a VM on Linux (or Mac), so that is something that MS supports that Apple doesn't. But to develop for Windows or Mac/iOS you will most likely need to give some money to MS or Apple.

This was non-commercial and there wasn't any development involved. Even if doing this in a Windows VM technically violated some license, I wouldn't care much for something that's just a hobby project.

As you pointed out, with Windows there's at least no technical barrier to running it in the VM. Even if I had to buy a license, that would be like a hundred times cheaper than buying a Mac.

And even without that, it is and has been easy to install windows and not give it a key. With windows 10 you don't even need to reinstall quarterly.

Microsoft provided the command line build tools for free, ad you could always target Windows using MinGW.

You're completely wrong about targeting Linux as well.

MacOS (and then iOS) have always been the only OS you can't freely target.

Apple is totally alone there.

Microsoft provide virtual machine images to download on their website.

> I believe, but I might be wrong, a similar thing applies to a large number of Linux systems especially if you wish to build GUI apps.

This is just bizarre. Where on earth did you get this idea from???

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