Fedora on mac with OSX in VM

[elcarlstono]

I would like to wipe my mac and install F17, but want to retain some OSX functionality, so want to use my snow leopard disk to create a vm guest. Will this work? Anybody done this?
Since the hardware is mac, it shouldn't violate the EULA in vm.
Thanks,
elcarlstono

edit: I should add that all this is *assuming* I can install 64 bit and then upgrade my ram to 4gb to run the vm. Currently OSX restricts my arch to 32 bit for some reason (it is an Intel MB, but an older one)

[brianblaze]

You are asking if it is possible to make the most expensive linux box ever haha and yes you can... I have OSX running as a VM on my fedora box (PC)... not very legal but I love life haha

---------- Post added at 12:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 PM ----------

Just to make a note of it since having a PC i never have to worry about this but make sure you can boot linux USB's or cd's from a MAC.... I can't help but feel like they would make it difficult to do that....

[chrismurphy]

Pretty sure you will need to use Virtual Box. I don't see EFI virtual firmware in KVM, but Virtual Box has one. It's flakey to say the least though. Snow Leopard works, but not since 4.1.15 for me. And then there are no Guest Additions for OS X, so you can't copy paste between environments, share USB devices, or file/folder sharing. And then there's currently no support for Lion or Mountain Lion (they simply won't boot no matter the version of VBox).

[elcarlstono]

Good to know, thanks Chris. Maybe a dual boot would be a better solution then.

[chrismurphy]

Yeah or VM Linux. Dual boot I think is largely a PITA, although the Mac EFI support with Fedora 17 makes this vastly better than the worksarounds required in the past that depended on the CSM (legacy BIOS).

The fact of the matter is, Mac OS is pretty fussy and wants to run directly on hardware. And Apple's hardware is also pretty fussy (and non-standard) and doesn't like foreign OS's: nonstandard EFI, delays in open source software supporting unique/obscure components, etc.

I've pretty much found it to be a PITA. The least painful is linux in a VM, on Mac OS as host. The next least painful would be commonly used hardware dedicated for running Linux.

[weitjong]

Originally Posted by chrismurphy

Pretty sure you will need to use Virtual Box. I don't see EFI virtual firmware in KVM, but Virtual Box has one.

I have been trying to boot into Lion using KVM without success. The thing that stumped me is not due to EFI firmware. Legacy BIOS mode starts the boot process just fine, however, for my case it always stuck at "still waiting for root device". My root device is of course present in the raw image, however, I believe the SATA/AHCI controller emulation in KVM is not compatible with AppleAHCIPort.kext. Already tried the injector method but still no juice. Booting Lion using using baremetal is much easier to do though because one can turn on the AHCI in the real firmware easily.

To the OP, why don't you just use the Apple bootcamp? If the bootcamp supports Windows 7, for sure it will also support booting into Fedora. I have not tried that on my genuine Mac machine yet but I believe bootcamp converts the disk from GPT with protected MBR to GPT with hybrid MBR. Apple would fallback to legacy mode to boot non-apple OS in the hybrid MBR. I think you will get best of both worlds that way instead of via virtualization.

[chrismurphy]

Originally Posted by weitjong

Legacy BIOS mode starts the boot process just fine, however, for my case it always stuck at "still waiting for root device".

This is vague. You say it's fine but then gets stuck which is not fine. When you boot in BIOS mode, you must have bootloader code in LBA 0 which then jumps to some other sector to load additional bits of bootloader. Apple's bootloader doesn't work this way at all. So you have to be using a totally different bootloader to load mach_kernel and kextcache.

To the OP, why don't you just use the Apple bootcamp?

Because it's fraught with problems. First of which is the non-standard hybrid MBR, which causes users all sorts of problems. Resizing volumes cannot be done with conventional tools and methods, you have to backup the MBR and GPT, and independently modify them, and do it correctly. The CSM Apple is using to emulate BIOS in EFI has all sorts of limitations including no USB booting, incomplete ACPI and AHCI support which limits battery life by a ton, and limits SSD performance especially.

Fedora 17 boots native EFI on a number of Macs to avoid these limitations. Booting it with Boot Camp defeats this by depending on the CSM.

[weitjong]

Originally Posted by chrismurphy

This is vague. You say it's fine but then gets stuck which is not fine.

Sorry, for my bad English. I meant to say 'Legacy BIOS mode starts the boot process just fine'. Note the stress. Alas, the boot process does not complete all the way. But IMHO, it has nothing to do with the BIOS that the AppleAHCIPort.kext fails to detect the emulated SATA controller (ICH9R) where my root device resides. Why I said fine is because the boot process has passed the point of loading all the kexts in S/L/E and E/E (I have not used kernelcache yet). Comparing with kernel.log from my genuine Mac machine, the borked boot process actually only needs to pass a few more milestones to finish completely. What remains are:
- 'Got boot device' and 'BSD root' line (instead of 'still waiting for root device')
- 'DSMOS has arrived' line
- 'macx_swapon SUCCESS'
Well, since I have never been there yet, I have no idea what else breaks afterward .

More about the emulated SATA controller, the VirtualBox emulates ICH8M (AHCI) while KVM emulates ICH9R (Raid). Therefore, I am still hopeful it might work by injecting the corresponding PID/VID string into the kext.

Apple's bootloader doesn't work this way at all. So you have to be using a totally different bootloader to load mach_kernel and kextcache.

Isn't that obvious? For sure Apple does not design Mac OS X to boot in a VM OOB. I am using BIOS and Grub2 as the first stage boot loader. From there one can either use 'xnu_kernel' command to boot mach_kernel or use 'multiboot' command to boot a multiboot-compatible kernel. I use the latter approach.

Because it's fraught with problems.

As I have not yet tried the Apple Bootcamp myself, so I have no comments there. However, my understanding is this, (U)EFI or BIOS firmware only deals with booting process passing the control from the motherboard firmware to the boot manager/loader. Would UEFI or BIOS mode have any impact to AHCI and ACPI support on the motherboard afterwards? At least I know it does not matter on my Asus P8Z68 Deluxe which can boot both using UEFI and legacy BIOS. Having said that, OP is talking about genuine Mac machine here which has proprietary EFI implementation. So, may be, just may be there is some truth in it. I am not sure.

Fedora 17 boots native EFI...

I have read somewhere in the forum that Fedora 17 Grub2/EFI is not recommended yet and should use legacy Grub/EFI combination instead. I am eager to try Grub2/EFI myself when F18 is out. Not on my Mac, for sure.

[chrismurphy]

Which version of Mac OS X? Even though the EULA has changed for Lion and Mountain Lion to allow the virtualization of the client version of Mac OS X, neither works in VirtualBox.

However, my understanding is this, (U)EFI or BIOS firmware only deals with booting process passing the control from the motherboard firmware to the boot manager/loader. Would UEFI or BIOS mode have any impact to AHCI and ACPI support on the motherboard afterwards?

It does, it depends on how the firmware initializes those interfaces prior to hand off. The loss of performance and battery life is measurable. And booting Linux with EFI and CSM, dmesg reveals the differences as well.

At least I know it does not matter on my Asus P8Z68 Deluxe which can boot both using UEFI and legacy BIOS.

It's a more full CSM implementation, than what Apple provides, is what this tells me.

I have read somewhere in the forum that Fedora 17 Grub2/EFI is not recommended yet and should use legacy Grub/EFI combination instead. I am eager to try Grub2/EFI myself when F18 is out. Not on my Mac, for sure.

Fedora 17 uses Grub Legacy EFI for EFI boot, and uses GRUB2 for BIOS boot. Which GRUB is installed depends on the boot mode of the installation media.

[weitjong]

Even though the EULA has changed for Lion and Mountain Lion to allow the virtualization of the client version of Mac OS X

Thanks for the info. I didn't know they have changed the EULA to allow the client version as well.

---------- Post added 11th September 2012 at 01:03 AM ---------- Previous post was 10th September 2012 at 11:30 PM ----------

Success! I am posting this from Mac OS X (Lion) running in VirtualBox which in turn running under F17 as host OS. Graphics and sound work out of the box although the sound is a bit choppy, network adapter works OOB too.

I am using the same approach I have been trying to do with KVM. VB passes the "still waiting for root device" problem I had earlier with flying color. As mentioned VB emulates ICH8M (8086:2929) which is supported by AppleAHCIPort.kext. Should KVM also emulates the same SATA controller, I think it would work in KVM as well, too bad.

One caveat, VB only supports Mac OS X Server, so it rejects to boot the Lion client EFI saying that version is not supported (or something like that). I have to change the VB setting to boot using BIOS mode instead and install our old friend grub2 to multiboot into Lion GPT partition .