article: Running OSX Mavericks under KVM with QEMM


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Tried all those to no  avail.

How about trying to get the native VNC server inside of the OSX running? You wouldn't have access to boot time screens with the mouse, but as soon as the OS was running it 'should work'.

http://www.yourdailymac.net/2011/06/how-to-enable-remote-desktop-for-mac-os-x-systems/

I was thinking of going down that route.  You do not really need mouse support at the initial boot stage.    I will have to use the VM I have running under VirtualBox on windows to set this up, and bring the resulting virtual disk across to the unRAID server.  I will report back if I have success going down this route.
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Since I see to be able to get into OSX if running on under VirtualBox on my PC I think I should perhaps there try the steps identified in 4.11 to get Mouse absolute positioning working?  I can then bring the virtual disk from there across to my KVM VM and see if I now have the mouse working?

Not yet!

 

It may be affected by the fact that although I manage to get into OSX in VirtualBox there is obviously something still wrong as I cannot then do a closedown/restart of the VM - on the reboot it hangs trying to log in. 

 

I can see me using this as an excuse to get a new motherboard/CPU that is better at supporting virtualisation and is Intel based rather than AMD  :)  Getting one that supports hardware passthru of a GPU would allow me to also use the unRAID server as a desktop which is attractive.

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I can see me using this as an excuse to get a new motherboard/CPU that is better at supporting virtualisation and is Intel based rather than AMD  :)  Getting one that supports hardware passthru of a GPU would allow me to also use the unRAID server as a desktop which is attractive.

 

Well there is nothing wrong with that  ;D That's my favorite excuse.

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  • 1 month later...

Got this working finally after getting a MBP.  Got a few questions though..

 

At present I have no GPU to passthrough, so is there a way to allocate more memory for gfx to increase performance?

 

Is there a VNC client I can use that doesn't end up with a remote & local mouse pointer?

 

Anybody getting anywhere with getting El Capitan up and running?

 

archedraft et al, I am amazed by the work you've done here, it really is a superb effort..

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Got this working finally after getting a MBP.  Got a few questions though..

 

At present I have no GPU to passthrough, so is there a way to allocate more memory for gfx to increase performance?

 

Is there a VNC client I can use that doesn't end up with a remote & local mouse pointer?

 

Anybody getting anywhere with getting El Capitan up and running?

 

archedraft et al, I am amazed by the work you've done here, it really is a superb effort..

 

Hey CHBMB! Glad you got this working! I've pretty much only used my Mac with a dedicated GPU so I cannot say much about what allocating more memory will do. I have been using TightVNC when I occasionally use VNC and if you turn off the dot in settings you only see the mouse. As far as El Capitan I have been very busy lately but I have managed to spend a decent amount of time attempting to upgrade but haven't had much luck. @danofun just today posted some steps in the comment section on how he was able to upgrade! Hopefully I'll have some time to test out his steps later this weekend.

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Thanks archedraft,

 

Does a dedicated GPU make a lot of difference to desktop performance?

 

I'm less impressed with VNC compared with RDP, might be placebo but a Windows VM with RDP feels a bit snappier than VNC.  Will have a bit more of a play around with it over the next few weeks, it's somewhat slow going as I have no idea how to use a Mac in general...

 

 

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Thanks archedraft,

 

Does a dedicated GPU make a lot of difference to desktop performance?

 

I'm less impressed with VNC compared with RDP, might be placebo but a Windows VM with RDP feels a bit snappier than VNC.  Will have a bit more of a play around with it over the next few weeks, it's somewhat slow going as I have no idea how to use a Mac in general...

 

Yes a dedicated GPU makes using the Mac VM amazing! I cannot stand the performance of VNC personally. I agree that Windows RDP is very snappy and usable on a daily basis (doing that right now in fact) but I do not think I could do it with VNC. I bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6450 1GB for my Mac VM which is great because the Mac VM just loads up without extra drivers needed. Also it's currently $40 now and $30 with a $10 rebate (here in the US) so you cannot really go wrong with that.

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Thanks archedraft,

 

Does a dedicated GPU make a lot of difference to desktop performance?

 

I'm less impressed with VNC compared with RDP, might be placebo but a Windows VM with RDP feels a bit snappier than VNC.  Will have a bit more of a play around with it over the next few weeks, it's somewhat slow going as I have no idea how to use a Mac in general...

 

Yes a dedicated GPU makes using the Mac VM amazing! I cannot stand the performance of VNC personally. I agree that Windows RDP is very snappy and usable on a daily basis (doing that right now in fact) but I do not think I could do it with VNC. I bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6450 1GB for my Mac VM which is great because the Mac VM just loads up without extra drivers needed. Also it's currently $40 now and $30 with a $10 rebate (here in the US) so you cannot really go wrong with that.

 

That's good to know, sorry for asking so many questions, but I saw you're using the HD6450 and my setup is very similar (if not the same) as yours, I was looking at getting one as well, yet when I look at some of the Macintosh websites devoted to running OSX on non Apple hardware the Nvidia cards seem to be recommended so I'm unsure of which way to go between AMD and Nvidea?

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That's good to know, sorry for asking so many questions, but I saw you're using the HD6450 and my setup is very similar (if not the same) as yours, I was looking at getting one as well, yet when I look at some of the Macintosh websites devoted to running OSX on non Apple hardware the Nvidia cards seem to be recommended so I'm unsure of which way to go between AMD and Nvidea?

 

I know Nvidia has a bunch of web drivers for Mac OS X now and I have read other users have had success (they were not doing VM OS X though). I tried passing through my Nvidia 8800 GT with the web driver but could never get it to work. I also spent a lot of time trying to load nvidia kexts and other nvidia graphics enablers for hackintosh but never got the 8800 GT working. I found another user that had successfully used the HD6450 without having to install anything, just stick it in and go and went that route. I newer Nvidia card *may work* but YMMV.

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Only issue I see is when using VNC to clover GUI is after select boot disc I only see a black screen with a apple logo, but the VM are booting, I can only connect VM with screen sharing using VM IP address , then I can login :-)    Now I will do some try with my GPU .......

 

GPU pass trough works just fine, same for the HDMI sound :-)

 

//Peter

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Hey peter! Glad to hear you got El Capitan up and working. My only concern with using Clover is how would a user install El Capitan without already having a OS X VM setup? I haven't put too much thought into it yet but it seems like you have to be able to boot into a working OS X VM first to install Clover before you can upgrade and/or do a fresh install.

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Thanks archedraft,

 

Does a dedicated GPU make a lot of difference to desktop performance?

 

I'm less impressed with VNC compared with RDP, might be placebo but a Windows VM with RDP feels a bit snappier than VNC.  Will have a bit more of a play around with it over the next few weeks, it's somewhat slow going as I have no idea how to use a Mac in general...

 

Yes a dedicated GPU makes using the Mac VM amazing! I cannot stand the performance of VNC personally. I agree that Windows RDP is very snappy and usable on a daily basis (doing that right now in fact) but I do not think I could do it with VNC. I bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6450 1GB for my Mac VM which is great because the Mac VM just loads up without extra drivers needed. Also it's currently $40 now and $30 with a $10 rebate (here in the US) so you cannot really go wrong with that.

 

I've ordered a HD 6450 from Ebay for £18 inc delivery to give it a go..

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I figured out how to upgrade and do a new install of El Capitan with the Enoch bootloader:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=43816.msg418263#msg418263

 

Well done, I'm just at the point where I'm trying to add the graphics card in Yosemite.  Got the USB bit done.  Going to finish that then tackle El Capitan..

 

Good work archedraft, I'm truly amazed..  ;)

 

Glad you got USB working. One thing I think I forgot to add in the guide about graphics is you need to remove all the VNC and graphics lines in order for it to work. I'll correct that tomorrow in both guides.

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I've got the GPU passthrough working, now I'm struggling as before with the USB controller passthrough using the same hostdev portions that work on my Windows VM. It does not work with the Mac VM. I'd love to know why. At first I thought it had something to do with the PCIRootID variable or the fact that I also had to change pci.0 tp pci.1 to get the GPU passthrough to work (whereas pci.0 was working fine on my Windows VM)

 

This works fine for my Windows VM not Mac:

 

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>
      <driver name='vfio'/>
      <source>
        <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x13' function='0x0'/>
      </source>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x06' function='0x0'/>
    </hostdev>
    <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>
      <driver name='vfio'/>
      <source>
        <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x13' function='0x2'/>
      </source>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x0'/>
    </hostdev>

 

 

See my previous post: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=34864.msg406361#msg406361

 

Thanks

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I was looking through your other post and like I said before I have never gotten my Mac VM and Hostdev to work well with USB (even though it works just fine on my Windows VM's). The only way I have gotten USB to work is by doing this:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36768.msg341517#msg341517

 

Here is my XML code from my Mac VM (The bold is my USB Controller and the unbolded top part is my graphics card):

    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>

    <qemu:arg value='ioh3420,bus=pcie.0,addr=1c.0,multifunction=on,port=1,chassis=1,id=root.1'/>

    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>

    <qemu:arg value='vfio-pci,host=02:00.0,bus=root.1,addr=00.0,multifunction=on,x-vga=on'/>

    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>

    <qemu:arg value='vfio-pci,host=00:1a.0,bus=root.1,addr=00.1'/>

 

 

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Thanks for the help.

 

I've actually added that before, as such:

 

<qemu:arg value='-device'/>
<qemu:arg value='vfio-pci,host=00:13.0,bus=root.1,addr=00.1'/>
<qemu:arg value='-device'/>
<qemu:arg value='vfio-pci,host=00:13.2,bus=root.1,addr=00.2'/>

 

As I have a keyboard/mouse connected to the pci controller, I initially thought it was was working but it turns out the mouse moves very slowly and stutters (key lag) from movement to movement. I couldn't get past that point.

 

I also have a trackpad/keyboard logitech device that I can use as a fallback USB Device. I just add the following hostdev block:

 

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb' managed='yes'>
      <source>
        <vendor id='0x046d'/>
        <product id='0xc52b'/>
      </source>
    </hostdev>

 

and restart, mouse/keyboard tracks fine.

 

However, what's weird is if I add the qemu:arg block above and restart the VM, I experience the lag, as I described above. Moreover, if I remove the qemu:arg block and simply use the hostdev block the lag still remains. I need to do a full reboot to completely remove the lag with the hostdev block.

 

But of course, I'd like to pass through a USB controller instead of a single device at a time.

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