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Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
I've just watched the WWDC Keynote and, when talking about the changeover to Apple's own CPU chips, mention was made of virtualisation. This was in the context of developers wanting to run things like Linux, but it prompted me to wonder whether there was a way of running a previous version of MacOS under virtualisation.

Our Mac is stuck on Mojave because I use Softpress Freeway to maintain my website and there is no prospect of any upgrade path to a 64 bit app. In all the talk over the years about running Windows or Linux under virtualisation in a window on the Mac desktop ( e.g. with Virtual PC or Parallels), I don't recall anyone mention of running a second version of Mac OS in this way.

If this were possible it would surely be a more convenient option than having to reboot the machine every time. Is it possible, or is this just a crazy idea brought on by the heat?

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Eleanor Spenceley
I run all my main Macs on Catalina these days but use Parallels to run Mojave/Freeway whenever I need to update old sites. In fact, I also have virtualisations of the all old Mac X (intel) releases when/if I need to access old Mac software. Not forgetting all the old Windows and Linux installs as well.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Stuart Affleck
Trevor, yes, it's more than possible.

It's been technically possible for years- you can run Snow Leopard Server on a VM to get PowerPC apps running, for example. I've done that myself. Apple's licencing, for the past few years, permits install of a client OS version with a VM- Mojave on Catalina, for example.
https://kb.parallels.com/124786 is one example of how to do it.
VirtualBox would be completely free:
https://appletoolbox.com/need-to-run-32-bit-apps-on-macos-catalina-use-a-mojave-virtual-machine/

This will work on Big Sur (Intel) but not Apple Silicon systems. VMs cannot translate an entire OS environment from one processor architecture to another, which is why Boot Camp installs of Windows are not possible on Apple Silicon (yet...). However, there will be a workaround, official or otherwise, you can be sure of that.

Edit: Eleanor got there before me!

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Derek Wright
Trevor
Can the technique described in
converting 32 bit to 64bit apps


be used to solve your problem.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Thanks. That’s all very encouraging. We bought a new iMac last year and it would be galling to see it stuck on Mojave for years just because of Freeway. I’ll look into the various options suggested.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Michael Corgan
Hi Trevor

At the expense of sounding like Euan (no disrespect intended) have you considered partitioning your new iMac and having one partition for Mojave and the other ... well you can guess where I am going with that one. I have my ancient iMac with Snow Leopard on one partition and El Capitan (which is as high as it will go) on the other. For me it would be a lot simpler than virtualisation.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Tony Still
I would be surprised to see Windows running an Apple Silicon machine natively as it can with Bootcamp.

My guess is that Rosetta 2 will have some dedicated hardware support, at least in initial versions of Apple Silicon. This might even include things resembling some x86 instructions but not a full instruction set and not privileged modes.

Apple Silicon is likely to be tightly bound to Apple Operating Systems (to deliver benefits in the same way that Metal does). There won't be sufficient incentive for Apple to invest in a PC emulation layer, be it in silicon or drivers, or MS to target custom hardware with no guaranteed standard or stability.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Thanks Michael. I do use that technique to run Snow Leopard on our old MacBook for those rare occasions when I need to retrieve an old ClarisWorks/AppleWorks document. However, I'm hoping that the virtualisation route will be more convenient, avoiding the need to reboot the iMac whenever I need to run FreeWay - which is likely to to be a fairly regular occurrence for the foreseeable future.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Mick Burrell
No chance of moving away from Freeway to allow you to use modern stuff?

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
I’d love to be proven wrong but I’m afraid I can’t see a route out of this particular cul de sac Mick. Softpress are developing a 64-bit offering but last time I looked, it still had a long way to go and there was no mention of backward compatibility with FreeWay documents.

Adding new material using a different software package could be reasonably straightforward but the existing pages would no longer be maintainable - and there are hundreds of them!

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Tony Still
I went the hybrid route when iWeb went the way of all 32-bit software (though it was getting cranky even before that). I now use Blocs and have linked to legacy pages left on the server. Despite reading criticism of iWeb, when I came to look its page organisation on the server was exemplary so the linking was easy.

There's nothing of any great consequence in my old pages though I did decide to gradually update them (they'd be lost if the server was somehow wiped out). I think I've updated one page so far...

Blocs is a nice (British) product but it is somewhat quirky. It produces responsive sites without you needing to give them any thought, which is a nice modern feature.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
The design of my website is so old, it was optimised for users with VGA monitors. The irony is that, as a result, it works fine on tablets without any modification, and is still useable on a phone. There are a few minor cosmetic features, e.g. rollover images, that get lost along the way but they don't affect readability or navigation.

Freeway generates a local version of your site, then uses a built-in FTP client to upload it, so there's no real risk of losing anything if the host server disappears.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Andrew Banks
Trevor, I use WMWare Fusion Pro and it allows me to create a virtual installation of Mac OS X. The Screen was limited to Tiny screen size by limits of the host system, but it worked.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Thanks Andrew. Sounds like I need to do a comparative evaluation of Parallels and Fusion! However, if there's not much in it, the fact that Eleanor has used FreeWay with Parallels could be the clincher.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Roy Rainford
When I saw this thread it seemed that Parallels might be the answer to running my old 32-bit standalone Lightroom and Photoshop Elements software on my MacBook Pro running Catalan. However, at £61.99 per year (currently £8 discounted) it’s a non-starter against the Adobe Photography Plan at £9.98 per year. I assume that Parallels is not available for outright purchase. Perhaps the knowledgeable members on this thread will correct me if I am wrong.

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Mick Burrell
I'm surprised the Adobe plan is only £9.98 per year - knowing Adobe I'd have expected it to be that price per month!

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Rick Churchill
You beat me to it

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Roy Rainford
Whoops, back to Specsavers!

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Euan Williams
It seems that there is a choice between outright puchase and subscription (see here).

Re: Virtualisation

Avatar Roy Rainford
Thank you Euan. I have followed the link and am considering a perpetual license.
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