MacOS at Ubuntu VM

Problems

Technical ones

Issues with permission to access ESP.qcow2

Check /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf for options „user“ and „group“. The virt-manager (using libvirt) is not able to open that file.

To apply the changes hit:

sudo systemctl restart libvirtd.service

Now the environment (started normally via applications menu by system’s user) is able to start the VM.

Mouse delay

It could be seen that the host’s mouse is delaying when enter the guest system. Simple solution for this is replacing the generig mouse with a „EvTouch USB-Grafiktablett“ type one.

Change Resolution to 1080p

A manual for this can be found at the „docu“ folder of the firstly downloaded zip file –

How to increase screen resolution for macOS-Simple-KVM

(Thanks to passthroughpo.st and urcomputertechnics.com for the tips.)

1. In the macOS Finder, look for EFI in the left bar under Volumes. If it isn’t visible you will have to mount it:

• Open the macOS Terminal and type diskutil list and look for the disk/partition location of the EFI. (There may be more than one.)
• Type sudo diskutil mount diskYsZ, using the disk/partition location name where you see EFI.
• The EFI partition will appear in the left Finder bar under Volumes.
• If you don’t see anything in that volume after browsing to it, try the other ones that you found in diskutil.

1. In the EFI volume, go into the Clover directory and open the config.plist file in the macOS text editor.
2. There should be a section of the file that looks like this:

<key>ScreenResolution</key>
<string>1280x720</string>

• Edit that to your preferred screen resolution.
• Some odd/intermediate resolutions like 1366×768 may not work well. Try to stick to more common 16:9, 16:10, and 4:3 form factors.

1. Shut down the VM, relaunch it using basic.sh script and follow the following steps:

• Press Escape key as soon as the window comes up.
• In the interface that comes up, select Device Manager->OVMF Platform Configuration->Change Preferred and select the correct resolution.
• Press F10 to save the changes.
• Press Escape multiple times to come back to main menu, and then select Continue on it.

Make sure to stick to the plan of that markdown manual.
I experienced that starting the VM out of virt-manager instead of using basic.sh lead to some screen issues. Clover started in the demanded resolution, but not setting this „in the interface that comes up“ results in stange behavior.

While trying to start the basis.sh script I also experienced following:

user@computer:/what/ever/macOS$ . basic.sh
qemu-system-x86_64: -drive id=ESP,if=none,format=qcow2,file=ESP.qcow2: Could not reopen file: Permission denied

Start it with super cow power:

user@computer:/what/ever/macOS$ sudo sh basic.sh