On Dec 6, 2020, at 20:16, Christopher Nielsen wrote: > On 2020-12-06-S, at 20:15, Ryan Schmidt wrote: > >> As you know the 2009 Xserves I use to run the MacPorts Buildbot system run >> VMware ESXi 6.0.0 and are running VMs from Snow Leopard through Big Sur. >> Leopard works too and Tiger supposedly works with an installer patch from >> Landon. You probably don't want VMware ESXi but I would guess a >> contemporaneous version of VMware Fusion would have similar capabilities. >> VMware ESXi 6.0.0 doesn't know about newer macOS versions but that doesn't >> seem to be a problem. The Big Sur VM, for example, is configured as "Mac OS >> X 10.8 64-bit" but works fine. Booting from APFS requires giving VMware a >> custom EFI, following instructions I found online. > > Cool, I didn’t realize you folks were using Xserves. Certainly makes sense > though. > > As for hypervisor hardware compatibility, ESXi 6.x is a fundamentally > different beast. It supports far older hardware, vs. VMware’s desktop > products. > > From VMware’s ESXi support page: > > *** ESXi 6.7 supports 64-bit x86 processors released after September 2006 > > Pretty awesome, right? > > Whereas VMware Workstation [Linux/Windows] now requires a processor from 2011 > or later. > > VMware Fusion is similarly strict, stating that “Macs from 2012 on are > supported, along with the 2010 MacPro.” More troubling, is the fact that > Fusion 12 now requires a host running either MacOS 10.15 or 11.0. I believe > they also utilize Apple’s Hypervisor framework, which isn’t necessarily as > performant… and certainly isn’t all that mature yet. > > Given that older CPUs can clearly be supported — and you’d hope they’re > reusing as much hypervisor code as possible between products — it doesn’t > make much sense. Apart from reducing their support expenses, which is > presumably the driving factor. > > In any case, I’m glad ESXi 6.x is still carrying the torch for older > hardware. Unfortunately ESXi 7.x is also going to tighten the compatibility > screws, similar to their desktop products...
I don't know whether VMware Fusion would work with as broad a range of macOS versions as VMware ESXi is working with for us, I just thought I'd mention it. There's generally a difference between what's "supported" and what works. Surely what we're doing with our Xserves is not supported, but it works for us.
