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VMware will not support macOS as a guest OS via its own hardware version technology
Overview
What has been announced?
As far as I can make out from a blog post and a support note (links below), guest operating system support for latest macOS versions on VMware Fusion will be discontinued in upcoming release 13.0 of VMware Fusion and at end of support for ESXi 7.0. At that point a deprecated support level will be provided to legacy macOS certified versions which support the VMware hardware version technologies in ESXi and Fusion but only for legacy Intel based Mac computers. Apple silicon macOS guests will never be able to be supported at all.
Wait, what?
A guest operating system is an operating system that is secondary to the OS originally installed on a computer, which is known as the host operating system. VMware have always had their own technology known as the VMware hardware version, which reflects the virtual machine's supported virtual hardware features on ESXi and Fusion. VMware say they will continue to attempt to test and certify new macOS releases for use as a guest on Fusion for Intel based Macs for as long as VMware Fusion is a production product for Intel Macs. These existing macOS VM's would be ones which have been created and run using a particular VMware hardware version. VMware go on to say that they cannot commit to supporting any future macOS operating systems releases as a guest OS on Fusion. My speculation is that this could be because of a requirement from Apple to use Apple's Virtualization framework, introduced in macOS 11, for virtualisation of macOS, particuarly on Apple silicon.
In the VMware Fusion tech preview for Mac computers with Apple siliconm, a new hardware version 20 supports guest operating systems such as various flavours of Linux and Windows 10 and 11. My speculation is that VMware hardware technology cannot be used to support the Apple Virtualization framework introduced in macOS 11 for creating and running a macOS VM the Apple way. As well as having new mechanisms to create and manage guests, while respecting Apple's security requirements, the Apple Virtualisation framework also enforces Apples End User Licence Agreement by limiting the number of guests to 2.
VMware Fusion tech preview (TP 22H2) shipped last week with hardware version 20 and guest support for various flavours of Linux and Unix. Fusion also supports Windows 10 and 11 on Mac computers which are Intel based and Mac computers with Apple silicon. And it is rocket ship fast on Apple silicon. But VMware Fusion contained the cryptic release note "macOS guest VM - Not currently supported". I guess that based on the two recent announcements (VMware does not plan to support latest macOS versions as a GOS on Fusion going forward. (88697) and vSphere ESXi 7.x will be last version to officially support Apple macOS Virtualization), that this can be updated now to "macOS guest VM - Will never be supported". Unless VMware Fusion can be modified to support Apple's Virtualization framework for Apple silicon based Macs, and theres a hint that it might, this is probably the clearest sign of the end of the road for me. By the end of the year I planned to be all Apple silicon. I need macOS virtualisation. Thats my main requirement for development abd testing.
Read more: VMware will not support macOS as a guest OS via its own hardware version technology
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Mozilla Firefox on ChromeOS — via Flatpak
Overview
It is easy, on a recent Chromebook to install all your favourite tools!
ChromeOS is full of capability these days, provided you can live with having a G-Suite / Google Apps based world. You have to embrace Google accounts and ID's if you develop apps which end up on Google Play anyway so a Chromebook is as much an ideal development system for mobile apps as an equivalent Apple Mac with its Apple ID and whatnot. On a decent and recent Chromebook you can use Android apps directly from Google Play and Linux apps via the Linux system that is optionally available but very welcome not just for developer computers. Linux apps are a little more complicated to deal with but are worth the trouble.
Before you start!
You can check your Chromebooks Linux capability easily. If it has Linux under System > Advanced > Developers >Linux development environment then you are all set. If not update to the latest ChromeOS to double check and if still you can't see the Linux settings, then it is time to retire your old Chromebook or use it for trips and holidays and not worry about losing it. Assuming you have found that you have a Linux capable Chromebook or got yourself a nice new one, you'll find it quite easy to install the official Mozilla Firefox for Linux Flatpak.
TL:DR — Chromebooks have evolved into decent developer capable computers. Mozilla Firefox for Linux works well on supported Chromebooks and is easy to install.
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Does anybody know of a hardware compatibility list for the MIPS, Alpha, and/or PowerPC versions of Windows NT?
— Thom Holwerda (@thomholwerda) June 22, 2022
A tweet about the hardware compatibility list for the MIPS, Alpha, and/or PowerPC versions of Windows NT caught my eye in my timeline
I had a lot of affection for the non-Intel releases of Windows NT 3.x back in the day. I seem to recall that Windows NT 3.1 was slow as slow can be compared to OS/2 back then on equivalent computers but NT 3.51 was fast! I went to the launch of Alpha AXP at Digital Equipment Co. with the catchy tagline "Imagine being the one without Alpha AXP" and they excitedly sent a couple of Alpha AXP desktop computers with Windows NT for Digital Alpha AXP on them for evaluation. Nothing we made ran on them at Lotus. Just like today, an 'Error in exe' or some such message was returned if an invalid binary was launched. Unlike today fat binaries were not a thing despite some early hints that perhaps they would be for NT. Anyway the Alpha AXP desktops were beautifully built computers as you'd expect from Digital, and they were fast for the time with what were big specifications. Importantly they never made it to the company books as they were on evaluation from Digital. This meant they were fair game to take home since they were also incapable of being used for anything much! Wheeling them out of Lotus Park reception one evening the CEO helped us load them into our cars, thanking us for working late as usual. We were grateful! In reality they weren't that useful for anything — apart from for learning Windows NT of course!
All those memories came back to me as I was reading the tweet and thinking, "I know I've read that hardware list somewhere, but where was it? This was when support was via ftp, and CompuServe.
TL:DR — I found it, it was distributed on the MSDN Platform archive CD at the time in HLP file format which has long been obsolete. You can however coax Windows 7 into loading it up if you have an old Windows XP CD kicking around. Details of how to do that below.
It came with NT 3.5.1 distributed with MSDN platform archive CD at least back in the 90s. I knew I had read it somewhere years ago. Its in .HLP format at this path WINNT351_WKS/FREE/SUPPORT/HCLMAY95.HLP if you have that CD. It is hard to open on modern Windows computers :) pic.twitter.com/Rm5EgNKLrG
— Angus Fox 🏴 (@nuxnix) June 22, 2022
Read more: Vintage Microsoft Windows NT, non-Intel Hardware Compatibility List
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Joomla 4.1 has an effective command line interface (CLI)
Web apps aren't the best way to do repetitive actions or tasks with accuracy. Command line interfaces are under-rated but good solutions to this problem, and Joomla has one nowadays. You can use commands in scripts or type them in to your shell in order to accomplish routine tasks with repeatable accuracy.
It seems quite radical really to ssh into my server and set a configuration option from the command line but it is just the same security model as it would be if I using an editor.
TL:DR — The command line in Joomla 4 is effective and lets you script common commands for better repeatability and accuracy. On a mac it takes just a couple of commands in terminal to access the Joomla CLI on your server.