Simulate an Ubuntu-like VM inside macOS | Hacker News Reader

Simulate an Ubuntu-like VM inside macOS

yashodhanmohan.medium.com

This reads a bit like "when all you have is a hammer" because it seems like what you want is a VM, not a container[^1]. Have you considered using VM software instead of Docker and using an Ubuntu VM directly? Some options:

https://mac.getutm.app/

https://tart.run/

https://orbstack.dev/ (using its "machines" functionality)

[^1]: Of course macOS docker is running a Linux VM under-the-hood, but that's an implementation detail.

I have used VM softwares before and would have preferred using them in all honesty. This was more of an exploratory "can I do this? if yes, how far can I take it?" exercise. I just wanted to see how much effort would it take if I just wanted to "simulate" stuff (turns out 4 measly scripts). Plus I already use Docker in my work. This helps me avoid installing the VM software separately.

Not to mention, Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox, QEMU

UTM (GP's first link) is a GUI on top of QEMU.

Well, that plus the native macOS hypervisor framework as of a few months ago.

Last I tried Vritualbox isn't reliably available on M1

About OrbStack's machines:

> Strictly speaking, OrbStack machines are not independent VMs, but they're virtually indistinguishable for most intents and purposes — just with better integration. This is why we choose to call them "machines".

https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture#linux-machines

I have been using Multipass [0] for a while and it works great to quickly spin up an Ubuntu environment on my MacBook. It supports cloud config in case you want a custom instance.

It seems to be limited to running Ubuntu instances only (at least, I haven't figured out how to run other Linux instances) but if you want a quick clean Ubuntu VM I would recommend it.

0: https://multipass.run/

This looks quite interesting! Much more elaborate in options I guess. Though the limitation to Ubuntu is something they should look into expanding. Does it also allow me to persist state?

> Does it also allow me to persist state? You mean snapshots like a real vm? No, and thats why I don't use it.

Edit already, since I was wrong

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/multipass-snapshot-command/39...

$ brew install multipass

Leeloo Dallas Multipass

I second this recommendation. Multipass is a convenient cross-platform way to run Ubuntu VMs.

Would love if Multipass could extend to other UNIX flavors as well.

On Linux you can specify any cloud-init qcow2 image with file:// or http(s):// and it works beautifully

Multipass is pretty clutch for trivial VMs on MacOs for sure. I use it for a bunch of ssh jump boxes running vpns to different sites. The macOS build does not support custom images (lest not without [some truly insane hacks](https://github.com/canonical/multipass/issues/1260#issuecomm...) , which doesn’t really matter for what I use it for but it is kind of a bummer. If you need something with a little more grunt but don’t want to go full blown with writing your own QEMU tooling or fussing with something like UTM or Parallels, [quickemu](https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu) is a really nice qemu wrapper with sane defaults that can expose a whole lot of power if you need it.

Why "stimulate" an Ubuntu-"like" VM when you can have real Ubuntu in a real VM?

This docker-based solution looks needlessly complex.

Just to see if I can. Just a small weekend exercise. "Complexity" might be subjective though, but then again it looks simple to me because I made it, so I might be excessively biased.

I tend to use https://lima-vm.io/ these days when I need a quick VM environment locally on my laptop.

Lima is what I use as well. It's quick and easy to just fire up a VM with default settings, but also very easy to configure with different file sharing options, port forwarding, different linux distributions, etc. (their examples are also pretty good IMO [1]).

In particular I use it to run an amd64 VM, which I need to run a stubborn service for work that doesn't run on arm CPUs.

[1] https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/tree/master/examples

From TFA, the author mentions things like `date` having different args on Mac (BSD utils) and Linux (GNU utils). While true, you can just install GNU utils on a Mac, and get access to all of those, prefixed by g (e.g. GNU sed is launched with gsed).

Linuxify [0] is a decent shell script that does all of this for you.

[0]: https://github.com/darksonic37/linuxify

You can also do the same thing just with homebrew. I regularly replace a number of CLI utils because the BSD alternatives often have silly defaults/incompatible changes

No gsed, just sed.

Yeah, the script is just calling brew install over a list anyway.

I also outright replace sed and awk with their GNU equivalents. Better options and behavior, IMO. The only downside is if you have to share a script with someone, and then have to figure out how to make it work with stock.

If you already use homebrew, that works too: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/3ef7d3e13549b...

If you use Macports (much more consistent than homebrew and much more attentive to the way MacOS works and MacOS SIP etc works) then installing the GNU utils ports gives you a standard GNU environment, so pretty close to Ubuntu/Fedora etc.

Of course, networking etc and DNS and other system services will be the native MacOS, but MacOS is a Unix. It has its own init with launchtl and DNS/mDNS with scutil and mDNSResponder.

Yep, used to use linuxify a few years back. But then it used to mess with my internal scripts. Anyhow, this was just a "what-if" exercise. Plus, Ubuntu was a test OS, but CentOS/RHEL were real PITA on client systems and this gives me a quick way out from spinning up a VM while still maintaining control. But agreed, if I just wanted GNU utils, I'd have just gone ahead with linuxify.

I use multipass to run Ubuntu VMs on macos (m1). It works flawlessly. Zero issues so far (I keep around 3 or 4 VMs running in the bg and they still work after days/weeks with no issues regarding the network or whatever)

A big flaw in this approach is that the `ubuntu:latest` VM is not necessarily the same userland as a real Ubuntu installation (e.g. Ubuntu Server 20.04 != ubuntu:20.04).

Could this be used to spin up older os x (and older Linux and Windows)? Or would any of the other services do that? Would be really nice for my work!

Anything that has a base Docker image available, this would work. RHEL, Debian, etc should work without much effort. I have not seen older OSX Docker images so probably not. Windows server does offer some base docker images.

I want a VM so I run a container?

> There are times, when you’re working on a remote system that has a Unix system like Ubuntu, RHEL, etc.

While on a certified UNIX system, naturally the solution is to use a VM. /s

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