Why⌗

While you won’t find me yelling “BTW, I use Arch” on every linux venue available on the internet - I do use it - almost exclusively. Using Arch, installing it even, was not easy. Been a few years now, I still don’t believe it’s easy. I mean Arch is still Arch and it has changed me.

It has made Linux “simple” in a way Ubuntu never could. Sticking to using Arch and it’s wiki has been transformative for me as a developer like nothing else. People say patience is rewarding and this beautiful ordeal has set that in stone for me.

I love Arch Linux. Not because it’s one of it’s kind. I am sure this post would be praising Gentoo just as much if I had the balls to pick it up and stick to it. I just didn’t happen to. Arch broke and rebuilt me and that I’ll remember.

Anyway - I missed it so much after switching to an Apple device that I just had to try virtualising it. Since I work mostly in the terminal - a little xorg and i3 was enough and dare I say VMWare made it work flawlessly. I was happy again.

I respect the Macbook Pro as a build specimen but sorely missed the familiar GNU+Linux tools. Add the fact that all my work servers were Linux too - things were a breeze after my little experiment.

Did I say I was happy again?

Well that’s when Apple decided to present something that made me absolutely ecstatic - Apple Silicon.

I followed it closely. I knew it was gonna be “aarch64” but the “ArchLinux ARM” project existed. I wasn’t too worried.

The Macbook Air and Macbook Pro 13" were launched and they were everything I had hoped for. However there was no VMWare Fusion for aarch64 yet so I held on. And then the VMWare Fusion Tech Preview went public - yesss!!

The Apple rumour mill had already whispered of the new Macbook Pro 14" and 16" refresh so I held on. I held on.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max launch - I splurge.

I installed the VMWare Fusion Tech Preview the day my shiny new toy arrived. I got an ALARM ISO and I got Arch running and then it happened. The resolution was stuck at 1024x768 on a 4K 120Hz capable display. Copy paste across host and guest was not functional - coz open-vm-tools is is targeted for x86_64 only in the Arch package repo. Consequently folder sharing was unavailable too. I was sad again.

I didn’t give up - Arch wouldn’t let me. I scoured the internet and before long found a way. The VMWare graphics module, vmwgfx, was available in the Linux source since kernel version “5.14”. It’s just that the kernel ArchLinuxARM ships with was not built with support for said driver.

Aha! So I just needed to rebuild the kernel with the correct driver. But how the hell was i supposed to do that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried looking for a solution through google only to end up at the Arch Wiki and thinking - why didn’t I look here to begin with? That’s exactly what happened again.

I followed the steps put so elegantly together for me; praising the authors all through it. And they deserve every last bit beacuse it all worked. It all freaking worked - on the first freaking try. Aaaaaaaaaaa…!!!!

I typed in xrandr and I was presented with a whole host of options instead of the meagre 1024x768. Quickly switched to a 2k resolution because 3D acceleration for VMWare Fusion on Apple Silicon is still in the works. Changed my DPI and there I was looking at the familiar black screen - the way I wanted it to feel.

Built open-vm-tools based on its PKGBUILD for aarch64. Shared clipboard is functional. And so is “Shared Folders”.

Code⌗

I have a small repository if you want to give it a try:

https://github.com/daimaou92/install-arch-vmwarefusion-techpreview

It’s decently automated. I quite like the way this repo does it. It’s by Mitchell Hashimoto setting up his NixOS system. In essecnce I just have to go:

<env vars> make vm/install
<env vars> make vm/home

and a new Arch box is up with the way I want it configured.

The README includes everything if you want to give it a try. Have fun!

Closing⌗

Things are smooth. In the terminal there’s barely any difference. And this is all software rendered - a testament to just how powerful these new Apple chips are. I don’t do animations, transparency or fancy DEs so this is just enough to be perfect for me. I got back my workflow. I am happy again. And for the first time I know for a fact things are getting even better in the future. What a time to be alive.

Oh and BTW I use …. 😊