Add post 2023-07-30-vms on m2 pro.md

Having virtual machines on Apple M2 Pro

_posts/2023-07-30-vms on m2 pro.md

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+---
+title: Having virtual machines on Apple M2 Pro
+date: 2023-07-30 18:10:00 +/-0000
+categories: [Virtualization, Fusion]
+tags: [devops]     # TAG names should always be lowercase
+---
+# Software development on virtual machines
+Software development (SD) requires virtual machines. First, writing applications in languages like Java makes them run on different operating systems (OSes). As it is always a **must** to test your code, it needs to be run on different OSes. The quickest and IMHO best way to do this is to have virtual machines.
+
+Second, fixing software issues sometimes required a certain OS or a certain desktop environment or additional software, that e.g. shows the bug. To set up the required environment, a virtual machine (VM) is ideal.
+
+What kind of host (that contains the virtual machines) you use, depends on the computer and OS you are working on. In my case, it's a Mac. There are different hosts available for the Mac. I prefer **VMware Fusion**, as I consider it to be the cleanest solution from a SD perspective.
+
+Installing a VM on Fusion is straight forward:
+- download the OS ISO and attach it to the VM CD drive
+- adjust the settings for the virtual hardware of the VM
+- power up the VM
+
+# Moving from x64 to arm64
+Since the new **Apple Silicon** platform was released, I followed the development, as more and more guest OSes got compatible to ARM.
+A host on ARM requires the VM OS to be ARM as well.
+
+Windows for ARM is available meanwhile with a set of software, that makes it usable. But what about Linux distributions?
+VMware published a document, called _["The Unofficial Fusion 13 for Apple Silicon Companion Guide"](https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Documents/The-Unofficial-Fusion-13-for-Apple-Silicon-Companion-Guide/ta-p/2939907)_, that describes, what does work on ARM now and what does not. Reading the guide disappointed me at first, as is states:
+```txt
+The Fusion Community is reporting that the Arch Linux ARM port has not been successfully
+installed on Fusion 13 on Apple Silicon. Unlike the Intel versions of Arch, the ARMv8 supported
+platforms and images for the Arch ARM port are either single-board computers (Raspberry
+Pi/ARM development boards) or Chromebooks. The installation images assume the hardware
+contains devices that are not provided by Fusion’s virtual hardware. For example, most of the
+supported boards have MicroSD cards, which Fusion 13 does not provide.
+```
+That's bad, as Arch Linux is my favorite Linux distro.
+
+I acquired a brand-new Apple M2 Pro macBook, so it was time to get things working. Let's go!!
+
+![img-description](/assets/m2.png){: width="288" height="397" }
+_About this Mac_
+
+# KUbuntu ARM
+Ubuntu (ARM) should be supported ootb. The Companion Guide lists the following arm64 releases as known to work on Fusion 13 (page 28):
+ - 20.04.5 LTS (Focal Fossa)
+ - 22.04.2 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
+ - 22.10 (Kinetic Kudu)
+ - 23.04 (Lunar Lobster)
+ - 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur)
+
+ Unfortunately, there is no "ready to go" ISO download for Ubuntu ARM with a pre-installed desktop environment. Instead, you'll have to find and download [Ubuntu Server for ARM](https://ubuntu.com/download/server/arm) on Ubuntus web pages, download that and modify your installation.
+
+## Required modifications for KUbuntu 23.04
+This turns **Ubuntu Server** into an **Ubuntu Desktop**, as we know it. Reference: Companion Guide, page 30:
+
+### Install a desktop environment
+```shell
+sudo aptitutde install tasksel
+sudo tasksel
+```
+Here you can select a desktop environment of your choice. I've chosen **KDE**.
+```shell
+sudo aptitutde install open-vm-tools-desktop
+sudo snap install snap-store
+```
+### Change networking management to `NetworkManager` and update the boot files to reflect the changes
+```shell
+sudo systemctl disable systemd-networkd.service
+sudo systemctl mask systemd-networkd.service
+sudo systemctl stop systemd-networkd.service
+```
+Make a back-up of the `/etc/netplan/*.yaml` files and configure the networking settings:
+```shell
+cd /etc/netplan
+sudo vi 00-installer-config.yaml 
+```
+Content of `00-installer-config.yaml` needs to be limited to:
+```yaml
+network:
+  version: 2
+  renderer: NetworkManager
+```
+Finish the modifications:
+
+```shell
+sudo netplan generate
+sudo systemctl unmask NetworkManager
+sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
+sudo systemctl start NetworkManager
+sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
+sudo systemctl reboot
+```
+
+You are done!
+
+# Arch Linux ARM
+As we've completed level 1, let's move on to level 2!
+
+The start is similar to Ubuntu above. We need to download a certain ISO. Luckily, the [Archboot Project](https://archboot.com/) provides one which is build with Arch Linux ARM.
+
+When booted, hitting ENTER starts an installation wizard, that is self-explanatory. Using the wizard has a couple of advantages, e.g. it installs and configures **Secure Boot** MOK support
+with Microsoft certificates supported by fedora's signed shim. This certainly saves a lot of time compared to doing this manually.
+## Some minor adjustments
+In the end, the wizard presents a list of configuration files, that can be modified, before the wizard is ended. The settings are ok, I only had to adjust some minor points.
+
+### Change the hostname
+I changed it to something meaningful.
+
+### locales
+The `/etc/locale.conf` looked like this:
+```plaintext
+LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
+LC_COLLATE=C
+```
+It only lacks an `LANGUAGE=de_DE` entry at its end.
+
+### mirrorlist is empty
+Surprisingly, the `/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist` was empty, which prevents pacman from working of course. As I am located in Germany, I added the following:
+```plaintext
+Server = http://mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
+Server = http://de.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
+
+```
+
+### Full Arch Linux
+Once the wizard has finished, you are put back to the CLI. Before rebooting into your newly installed Arch Linux, the installation needs to be converted into a full Arch Linux, as the Archboot system is stripped down to minimal space usage:
+```shell
+update -full-system
+```
+
+## Some rework
+As we are talking about virtualization, we need the `open-vm-tools` installed in our VM, to have a proper screen resolution for the VM and working copy & paste between the host and the VM.
+
+I was surprised, that the tools aren't available in the repro. So we have to compile them manually. Luckily, we are on Arch Linux, so this is no big deal.
+
+First, we acquire the source code, configured for Arch Linux:
+```shell
+git clone https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/open-vm-tools.git
+```
+This is the `PKGBUILD` and according service files for the **x86** architecture. Te only thing we need to change is to replace `arch=('x86_64')` with  `arch=('aarch64')` in the `PKGBUILD` script.
+
+This enables us to compile the source code for ARM and install it afterwards:
+```shell
+makepkg -si
+```
+
+That was it!
+
+# ARM is amazingly fast
+It was worth the effort. Check out [this screen recording](https://my.hidrive.com/lnk/6aiFHkLw) to see, how fast the VM is booting.
+
+# To do
+I'll have to find a way to keep manually compiled and installed software up to date.