Dell XPS 9550: MacOS virtualized with pass-through in Arch / Manjaro Linux

[Gymnae]

The goal

Install Manjaro Linux, a derivative of Arch Linux, on the Laptop as main OS (called "host") and run MacOS in a virtualized environment (as a "guest") with as much Performance as possible, dedicating the dGPU entirely to MacOS.

 

Why

Contrary to old-times, where running an OS in a virtualized environment would yield a very slow guest, nowadays technologies like KVM and PCIe pass-through allow for "near native" Speed.

This can bring many advantages, from having no more sleep problems to using Optimus based dGPU configurations - and more.

 

This Topic was created from a discussion started in the installation guide for the Dell XPS 9550 Notebook.

 

Now

The basic problem: Getting a stable Linux on to the machine and then to setup the KVM and QEMU environment

 

Status

1. Manjaro 17.1.12 installed
2. NVIDIA Optimus active via BumbleBee
3. MacOS runs via QEMU and KVM

 

ToDo

1. Set up the KVM Environment
2. Set up QEMU
3. Set up IOMMU, meaning direct Hardware access
4. Set up VGA passhtrough --> see known Problems, this might never be achievable
5. Potentially switch from GRUB to rEFInd
6. Install Windows - it's easier fro Starters
7. Install MacOS High Sierra

 

Known Problems:

• The Dell XPS 9550 is a MUXless Notebook, meaning that the dGPU requires the iGPU for drawing it's output on screen(s) - seperating the output seems very hard. 
• There is no good way of enabling VGA passthrough on Optimus based and MUXless without hardcore hacking - avoiding this was the basic premise of this endeavour
• Most guides are centered around Windows, where the NVIDIA Drivers check if a consumer card attempts to be passed through and block it. This might be a chance for MacOS, the drivers might not check this.

 

HowTo

This "guide" assumes knowledge about Linux and MacOS.

 

1. Install Manjaro 

The HowTo section will be filled once there's a proper way to get this done. See below and above for the status.

Please follow the official guide, unless you have a 4k native drive, see note below:

 

Notes:

1. Boot with non-free drivers, so that the graphical installer also installs bumblebee
2. Chroot into the newly installed OS before reboot and add yourself to the bumblebee Group "gpasswd -a <username> bumblebee"

 

Notes for 4k drives

If your SSD/HDD is 4k native, you need to partition your drive by hand and take special care when preparing the UEFI Partition. It should be at least 300MB in size and created with the following command:

mkfs.fat -s2 -F32 /dev/nvmXY

Afterwards, you can run the graphical installer and select your previously created partitions as targets, without formatting the UEFI partition.

 

Updates

6.9.18: I've been reading and experimenting with this. The short version: It seems unlikely that passthrough will ever work due to the Optimus setup. What could be doable and seems realistic to is to turn the Linux host to a headless system, meaning that no X Server is running on Linux, but only for MacOS (whenever I start the gues). This means to use the Intel iGPU only, since Apple does not support Optimus. We're back to the status of bare-metal Hackintosh on this Laptop, minus proper Audio. This, right now, seems not to be a good solution.

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by Gymnae