Out of interest, would you mind describing your setup? i.e. hardware, linux distro, VM tech and macOS version?

It's nothing special. I use Kubuntu on a MBP, and I've talked about how I've setup Plasma Desktop before on HN[1][2].

I run Catalina in a VM because it's the oldest macOS version that supports the APIs I'm developing against. I used to use KVM for virtualizing macOS, but VirtualBox[3] is more portable despite being much slower, so I use that now.

If you can use KVM with Virtio and VFIO passthrough, it's really fast. Linux just got Virtio-fs[4], too. I've had to pass boot options to the kernel to get the IOMMU to play nicely on the Mac, though, and I just don't have patience for that these days.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607374

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25172499

[3] https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos-virtualbox

[4] https://virtio-fs.gitlab.io/

Thanks. I've got an MBA6,2 lying around so may give it a go over the holidays.

Linux runs really well on Macbooks that came out before 2016. I've found powertop, TLP and TLP-GUI, and mbpfan to be useful laptop and Mac-specific tools on Linux.

Not the poster you're replying to, but a cheesegrater MP4.1 with Debian and this package (https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM) works just fine.

Never bothered with GPU passthrough however.

So, you run Linux on your Mac and virtualize MacOS but won't be able to locate and download the installer as others have indicated?

I haven't actually looked into it, hence why I said it could impact my ability to do so.

That might make you unique haha.

How does VM Mac on a Mac as a developer make one unique?

Buying a mac, installing linux as your daily driver, and then running macOS in a VM?

I honestly don't even know why you'd do that. I certainly have never heard of anyone doing that until now.

I think it's more common to virtualize macOS on a Mac running macOS.

Sure, but that is not the setup I interpreted from his comment, as I'm unsure why you would mention linux if the point of the comment was about virtualizing macOS on macOS.

Yes, I understand. But if you can't install macOS in VM on Linux (on a Mac) then you most likely can't do it in a VM on macOS either.

Likely because he wants more than a sliver of control over his OS.

Why?