I tried running some macOS apps on Proxmox, here’s how it went

Key Takeaways

• Apple’s macOS has loads of stable options, however constructing a Hackintosh can prevent cash on dear MacBooks.
• Operating macOS on Proxmox requires endurance, as some purposes could not work on account of {hardware} limitations.
• Regardless of challenges, productiveness apps like Ulysses and Google Chrome work nicely on a Proxmox-powered macOS VM.

With its smooth UI, sturdy performance, and rock-solid integration with different Apple merchandise, there’s no denying that macOS is an incredible OS. The truth that Apple’s premium desktop OS has clung to its spot as one of many huge three desktop working programs apart from Home windows and Linux – regardless of its exclusivity to a smaller set of units – serves as a testomony to macOS’ large success.

Sadly, not everybody can spend 1000’s of {dollars} simply to expertise an intuitive OS. Plus, many of the inexpensive MacBooks are sometimes crippled on the reminiscence entrance, so that you’re certain to lay our a fortune simply to make use of macOS. However fortunately, it’s nonetheless potential to construct your individual Hackintosh and, having beforehand turned my old PC into a Proxmox-powered macOS machine, I lately determined to check some in style purposes on the makeshift macOS system. Whereas the efficiency was equally shocking and predictable, right here’s every thing I realized after engaged on this experiment for nicely over per week.

My outdated PC and server rig could not make the lower

And I needed to whip out my main system for the undertaking

In case you’ve learn my current articles on XDA, you might have realized that I’ve grown keen on house servers. So, my preliminary thought was to attempt to run as many macOS purposes on my twin Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4 system. Sadly, the server CPUs from 2016 failed miserably at working macOS Ventura and outright refused in addition into Sonoma.

Actually, their efficiency was so dangerous that even after allocating a majority of cores and upwards of 60GBs of reminiscence, the server machine was simply defeated by the measly 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 1600 on my outdated PC. However it wasn’t a lot of a victory for the first-generation Ryzen member of the family both, because the macOS VM was nonetheless somewhat too sluggish for me to make use of it. To not point out, the efficiency would plummet anytime I launched greater than three purposes directly.

Ultimately, I needed to relent and nominate my Ryzen 5 5600X PC for the undertaking. As I flashed Proxmox onto a USB drive, I used to be feeling assured about the entire undertaking. In spite of everything, a 5600X ought to, on the very least, ship satisfactory efficiency. Though it will definitely supplied some good outcomes, my path was wrought with loads of errors, bugs, and crashes. What’s hilarious is that I encountered my very first roadblock moments after flashing the Proxmox ISO onto a USB drive and utilizing it in addition into the Proxmox installer.

Hours glided by as I painstakingly solved every error

However the consequence was definitely worth the trouble

As soon as I agreed to arrange Proxmox utilizing the graphical set up technique, my PC froze up on the loading drivers part. After dismissing it as a defective ISO/USB drive combo, I repeated the method with older variations of the Proxmox picture and totally different storage media, however the error saved rearing its ugly head each time. Even including the nomodeset parameter resulted in slowdowns, that means it was time to don my troubleshooting hat.

Seems, the drivers on the RTX 3080 Ti in my PC have been the supply of those troubles, and changing the GPU with the ol’ dependable GTX 1080 introduced an finish to my woes – a minimum of for the following couple of minutes. One factor I observed was that Proxmox refers to your processor’s threads (and never the cores) because the assignable CPUs for digital machines. Since I may solely assign the variety of cores as some exponential worth of two (apart from 0), I made a decision to allocate 8 out of 12 threads as CPU cores to the macOS VM. For the reminiscence, I went with 16384MB, or precisely 16GB out of the 32GB RAM accessible on the host machine.

After following the precise process detailed in my older submit, I booted into macOS Ventura and encountered the following difficulty: the system failed to connect with the Web. This time, the problem was with my PCIe Ethernet card, as macOS doesn’t detect units hooked up to the PCI Specific slots. Since organising PCIe passthrough on macOS requires a variety of elbow grease, I took the quick means out and reinstalled the OS after unplugging the NIC. This time, I used to be unable to check in to my Apple account on the App Retailer, as macOS saved claiming the system was unable to connect with the server.

Happily, after a marathon of fixes involving every thing from switching the community drivers to working terminal instructions, I resolved the problem by following the oldest trick within the guide, specifically turning off all programs and reconnecting the LAN cables after unplugging them for a couple of seconds. Finally, I used to be capable of log into my Apple account and reside my lifelong dream of working macOS on a semi-capable machine.

Productiveness apps labored spectacularly

The rock-solid efficiency in Chrome and LLMs was fairly sudden

With the Ryzen 5 5600X offering a surprisingly snappy expertise, I started my campaign to put in virtually each app I may scour from our macOS-centric articles. My first set of purposes included the note-taking necessities Ulysses, Obsidian, Craft, and macOS’ very personal Notes app, and all three labored so nicely that I used to be virtually fooled into believing I used to be on an precise MacBook, albeit a slower one.

After downloading some demanding purposes from the App Retailer (which I’ll get to in a bit), I needed to seize some purposes from exterior sources. However Safari had different plans, because the browser was stricken with a glitch that induced it to render internet pages for a brief second earlier than going clean. With somewhat little bit of reminiscence retention and (maybe, sheer luck), I managed to obtain Chrome on the VM. To my shock, the browser labored extremely nicely, to the purpose that I encountered zero efficiency points even after opening as many as ten tabs alongside the note-taking apps from earlier!

I additionally dabbled with Firefox, which supplied related outcomes as Chrome. Sadly, Arc was the outlier, as the brand new browser on the block froze every thing, and I needed to forcibly shut down the VM. As soon as I acquired again into OS, I ran Fantastical, TickTick, Freeform, and another productivity-oriented macOS apps, they usually all ran in addition to you’d anticipate by now. Lastly, the final success I had was with Ollama.

Whereas I by no means anticipated macOS to have the ability to deal with full-fledged LLMs, Ollama exceeded my expectations. After putting in the app from the web site, I used the terminal command to put in Llama 3.1 and the common variant of Mistral. The previous was only a tad slower than working an LLM natively on my outdated PC, although Mistral wasn’t far behind both. And with that, it’s time to speak in regards to the apps that didn’t work, and boy, are there loads of them!

My desires of booting Home windows 11 from macOS working on Proxmox have been laid to relaxation

The Parallels Desktop app was one of many first issues I attempted to put in on my Proxmox-powered macOS machine. Sadly, I couldn’t even get the device in addition up, not to mention run a Home windows 11 VM. In the meantime, I used to be capable of enter the principle menu and create a digital machine in VMware Fusion Professional, although all my makes an attempt at working stated VMs resulted in failure.

In an analogous vein, Pixelmator refused to start out, as my pretend Macintosh (Fakeintosh?) was incompatible with Apple’s Steel graphics expertise. Affinity Photographs confirmed some promise when it instantly booted up, although the app could not show any photos I attempted to import. Apple Maps had an analogous difficulty the place it couldn’t render any location once I explicitly looked for it.

Earlier than happening a downloading frenzy, I attempted to make use of Surkshark to repair the community points. However because it turned out, the VPN supplier couldn’t join me to a single static or devoted IP. Steam, too, failed at the start of the set up course of. Not that I may play any video games on a system and not using a correct GPU, thoughts you. Curiously sufficient, I used to be capable of get the built-in Chess sport to run, although the efficiency was on the unbearably low facet.

Lastly, I attempted to put in Xcode from the App Retailer. Sadly, it’s good to be on the newer variations of macOS, like Sonoma, to entry Xcode. And since I recalled Sonoma’s horrible efficiency the final time I tried this undertaking, I made a decision to not improve to macOS model 14. I additionally tried the unofficial technique to put in Xcode 14 by grabbing its DMG file from the Web Archive and utilizing some terminal instructions to set it up, although it didn’t go in addition to I anticipated. However, I’d had my fill of macOS and determined this was a very good stopping level for the experiment.

So, what are you able to run on a macOS VM in Proxmox?

After compiling the listing of apps that did and didn’t work, I noticed a hit price of barely above 60%. In 2024, the Ryzen 5 5600X isn’t value writing house about, particularly with the current-gen 9600X delivering superb efficiency on all fronts, and I consider including extra reminiscence, particularly DDR5 RAM, may’ve proven significantly higher outcomes.

If I have been to improve this undertaking, I’d begin by getting a high-end CPU and pairing it with a GPU from AMD’s outdated RX 500/5000/6000 sequence, as Crew Pink’s graphics playing cards have significantly better probabilities of working with macOS than these manufactured by Nvidia or Intel. With the quantity of labor it takes to troubleshoot all of the minor errors, working macOS on Proxmox is a check of endurance. However in case you’re prepared to place up with this ordeal, it’s a great way to entry primary macOS apps and achieve some first-hand expertise with the virtualization behemoth, Proxmox.