Linux on UTM

UTM can Virtualize or Emulate

Following the instructions here, I got Ubuntu up and running (virtualized, not emulated, using ubuntu-22.04.3-live-server-arm64.iso) on an M2 MacBook Air. (To do: Setup an Intel version under emulation; could that be virtualized on Intel Macs? Different metadata but same disk images? Curious.)

Setup with 2048MB, 2 CPU cores, OpenGL acceleration disabled, 32GB virtual disk. For a moment I got a message about the display not being active, but it powered through and rewarded my patience.

Comparing the base model MacBook Air M2 13.6" to my NAS (an old HP Microserver with an Intel® Celeron® CPU G1610T @ 2.30GHz) with sysbench:

	Celeron	M2
CPU speed (events per second)	620.71	9277.71
Number of events	6209	92791

Okay, yeah, even with the UTM overhead, that’s fast enough to be usable. What about Fedora for Intel? Setting up a new VM with Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-39-1.5.iso, with System: “Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009) (alias of pc-q35-7.2) (q35),” 2048MB RAM, 2 CPU cores, and OpenGL acceleration disabled. I ran this in “live” mode booted from the ISO media, because I’m mostly just playing around at this point and more curious than anything. It boots into a relatively heavy GUI by default, which isn’t exactly snappy in this setup.

	Celeron	Emulated x86 on M2
CPU speed (events per second)	620.71	843.70
Number of events	6209	8441

So, crawling in comparison, but still actually faster than that (admittedly low end, and 11 year old) piece of actual Intel hardware. Usable for development purposes, especially a headless server. Not sure I’d want to use it for much more than that (just like the Celeron!). But it is usable.

(The memory test was something else, though; real hardware, 3341.10 MiB/sec; emulated, 397.49 MiB. But, that’s not controlling for things like swap. I had several large browser tabs open on the Mac side of things, plus Scrivener, plus ... Memory pressure was in the yellow, with 7.2 GB of 8.0 GB physical memory used. I should try it again after a fresh boot. For, you know, science.)