Running macOS virtual machines (VMs) on Apple silicon Macs may not seem popular, but it has long been one of Apple’s important goals. Yet, if you do use a virtualiser on an M-series Mac, you’ll know how different it is from those that virtualise macOS and other operating systems on Intel Macs. This article explains why virtualisation is so important, and how it has become so different.
↫ Howard Oakley
Excellent read, as always from Howard Oakley.
Small addition:
Apple also provides a high level Virtualization API:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization
This makes it very easy to run Linux for example directly on Apple Silicon in your own app.
(I think this is also how most virtualization apps work on the mac, including vmware, UTM, or docker desktop).
I have used it. It is very good. Couple hundred lines of code for a fully functional VM system with GUI. Tres bon. I had ARM Linux on my company M2 in no time – few hours.
Very neat. Article included a mention of Tart (https://tart.run) which looks like the missing piece on MacOS. That might convince me to move back to mac.