OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Virtualization => Topic started by: Jean-Yves on May 16, 2024, 01:15:59 pm

Title: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on May 16, 2024, 01:15:59 pm
Hi,

I've been away from ArcaOS for a while, although I'd occasionally take a look here to see how things are giong. Anyway, I've been meaning to get back into it for a while as it always drags me back into its orbit when I've been away too long ;)

I'm looking at buying a 5.1 license (upgrade from 5.0) and wondered whether anyone had got that working on the UTM in Intel emulation mode on an Apple Silicone Mac? UTM is effectively QEMU with a pretty front end plus a few extra bits.

My laptop is a MBP M3 if that has any bearing. A bit of a beast so the emulation should be zippy enough I think, assuming I can get it running.

If not I'll get it set up under VirtualBox on my Intel Linux laptop instead, so all is not lost.

Thanks
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Roderick Klein on May 16, 2024, 01:44:35 pm
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/oracle-virtual-box-windows-11-mac-arm-m-series.2417862/

Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on May 17, 2024, 11:11:19 am
Hi Roderick,

Thanks for the link - tbh I'm trying to avoid VMWare following the Broadcom buyout. I don't trust them to not ditch the free layer at the drop of a hat.

I'll probably just install on the Linux laptop.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Sean Casey on May 17, 2024, 04:28:38 pm
I also can't stand Broadcom.  I have 1.5 years remaining on my vSphere Essentials license, but have already moved to Proxmox because Broadcom now wants to charge me $9,000 USD annually for what was once a $350 product plus $75 annual maintenance.

I have also been licensing VMware Workstation Pro which I have been using with OS/2 (and SCO/Win/DOS).  OS/2 works very well on Workstation Pro with two SCSI tape autoloaders I have been using with BusLogic virtual SCSI adapters. 

I read yesterday that Broadcom has released Workstation Pro as freeware for non commercial use.  This is a big win as I have been paying $99/year maintenance on each of my licenses. 

I suspect there will be little to no future investment in Workstation Pro, but Broadcom only needs to maintain its kernel module source to allow continued use of the product into the future.

Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 17, 2024, 04:35:02 pm
I read yesterday that Broadcom has released Workstation Pro as freeware for non commercial use.
Thanks for sharing that. I found this post from may 13 that confirms that. (https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2024/05/vmware-workstation-pro-now-available-free-for-personal-use.html) I think it was a good move to try don't annoy the non-commercial/home users of it, and also maybe to try to get some space from VirtualBox.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 17, 2024, 04:43:41 pm
Hello Jean-Yves

I was checking the alternatives for a Mac with Apple Silicon to run ArcaOS. I don't know much about it since I don't have Macs.

If we go with the VirtualBox way to run ArcaOS as a guest, I found that there is an specific version of VirtualBox made for Apple Silicon. It is not on the main download page, but in the older releases pages:
- https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_7_0
It is listed on the 7.0.8 release as "Deloper preview for macOS / Arm64 (M1/M2) hosts"

Will it work on the M3 Apple Silicon? I guess I would need your help Jean-Yves to confirm if it works and if you can run ArcaOS there. But maybe it is only a virtualizer and does not emulate Intel.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on July 17, 2024, 10:59:23 am
Sorry for late reply and thanks for looking into this. :)

I was aware of the native build for AS but I've been told to steer away from this as it's already no longer supported and from what I can tell speaking to a few people (on the webs, so pinch of salt, etc), there are no plans to resurrect it.  From memory VBox asks for escalated privileges for some of its processes - I'd rather not allow that for something that won't get security updates.

PS - I've not got around to buying 5.1 yet.  So it's not urgent.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: jailbird on July 17, 2024, 08:58:53 pm
VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop on Apple Silicone will ONLY run AArch64 (arm64) OSs, which obviously ArcaOS isn't one of.

Now once that arm64 OS is running, then that guest OS can run x86/x86-64 binaries using Rosetta 2 for speed ups, but the Guest OS has to support that. So either way, these aren't going to work for ArcaOS.

You might be better off using 86Box or UTM for this.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Dave Yeo on July 18, 2024, 12:49:47 am
I doubt that 86box supports enough of the i386 to run OS/2 and for QEMU, they have finally fixed the bug that stopped OS/2 4.5+ running so as long as UTM has a new enough QEMU, it should work.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on August 24, 2024, 06:47:42 pm
Hi thanks for that info and apologies for very late reply - I was hoping the fix would be incorporated into UTM, but that's still not done so for now I've just installed it in VBox on my Linux laptop that is Intel-based. Bought the 5.1 upgrade yesterday :)
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on July 15, 2025, 12:27:52 am
Resurrecting this old thread just to ask whether anyone has managed to get ArcaOS or indeed eCS or even OS/2 Warp 4 installed and running on UTM on an M-series Mac?

I get as far as the ArcaOS logo in the installation program, then it just sits there indefinitely. So not very far at all. I've tried various hardware profiles, but no joy.

If anyone has managed it, would they mind posting their config values here?
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: fro on November 13, 2025, 11:09:19 pm
Hi. I just want to confirm that I have OS/2 Warp 4.52, ArcaOS 5.0, and ArcaOS 5.1.1 all working well in UTM (as of 4.7.4) on an M1 Macbook Air.

I also have ArcaOS 5.1.1 working in 86box but it's rather sluggish there and wasn't as easy to install.

edit: Attached UTM config for 5.1.1
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 14, 2025, 01:16:27 am
Hello, welcome fro to the forums.
I also have ArcaOS 5.1.1 working in 86box but it's rather sluggish there and wasn't as easy to install.

Just in case, there was a presentation last week at Warpstock about ArcaOS on Apple Silicon with 86Box.
You can check it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfzZOrhxFc&t=7s

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on January 14, 2026, 03:42:46 pm
Thank you for the UTM config file! I will try getting this setup asap. :)

And thanks for link to the 86box alternative method, which I'll try as a backup of the UTM config does not work for me.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: fro on January 14, 2026, 10:08:07 pm
I've switched over to just using QEMU installed from homebrew now but do let me know how things work out for you.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on January 20, 2026, 01:33:04 pm
It works!  Thank you so much. At first of course I could not help tinkering and went and enabled USB and then forgot about that, after which it carried on hanging on the ArcaOS logo. When I remembered I'd done that, I disabled USB and the installation went through without a hitch.

One change I did make was to set the upscaling to linear (form nearest neighbour) - this dramatically improved the font rendering.

Mouse movement is a little laggy/floaty at times, but overall, happy days!

Thank you once again.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: fro on January 21, 2026, 02:16:00 am
Nice! Glad it's working for you. I've attached what I'm using for QEMU config as well.

It's just a shell script with the QEMU commands.

Cheers
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 22, 2026, 03:38:04 pm
Hello fro, Jean-Yves

If you want to write something more with more detail about your experience I can post those on the OS2World wiki.
Just let me know.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Jean-Yves on January 26, 2026, 12:00:59 pm
fro: thanks for the shell script.

martin: there is not much to say really - I used the supplied utm file and just set upscaler value as mentioned. If you want though, I can write up a quick summary of the steps up to the installer starting?
You'd need to add the utm config file and credit fro, as really all I did was use a file they supplied.
Title: Re: ArcaOS 5.1 on Apple Silicone
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 26, 2026, 03:37:00 pm
...I can write up a quick summary of the steps up to the installer starting?
Yes, that is what I need to make a little wiki page about this.

Regards