How to run Windows 10 on ARM or Ubuntu for ARM64 in QEMU on Apple Silicon Mac

Here is easy steps to try Windows 10 on ARM or Ubuntu for ARM64 on your Apple Silicon Mac.
Enjoy!

NOTE: that this is current, 6/6/2021 state.

Running Windows 10 on ARM

1. Install Xcode from App Store or install Command Line Tools on your Mac running on Apple Silicon.

   xcode-select --install
   

2. Install ARM64 Homebrew and QEMU dependencies.

   If you already installed x86_64 Homebrew in /usr/local, please uninstall it.
   It’s not possible to build QEMU with x86_64 Homebrew

   https://brew.sh/

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
   brew install ninja pkgconfig glib pixman
   

3. Clone QEMU source code.

   git clone https://git.qemu.org/git/qemu.git
   

4. Create a local branch then apply Hypervisor.framework patches that @_AlexGraf made.

   cd qemu
   git checkout 3c93dfa -b wip/hvf
   curl 'https://patchwork.kernel.org/series/485309/mbox/'|git am --3way
   

5. Build QEMU

   mkdir build
   cd build
   ../configure --target-list=aarch64-softmmu --enable-cocoa
   make -j
   

6. Download pre-build EDK II OVMF EFI image for QEMU.

   This EFI image is built from stable202011 tag with additional resolutions in QemuRamfb.c.

   https://gist.github.com/niw/4f1f9bb572f40d406866f23b3127919b/raw/f546faea68f4149c06cca88fa67ace07a3758268/QEMU_EFI-cb438b9-edk2-stable202011-with-extra-resolutions.tar.gz

   To build it from the source code for adding more resolutions, see the following section.

7. Prepare pflash for non-volatile variable store, such as screen resolution.

   In the directory where you downloaded QEMU_EFI-....tar.gz, run following commands.

   cd ~/Downloads
   tar xzvf QEMU_EFI-*.tar.gz
   dd if=/dev/zero of=pflash0.img bs=1m count=64
   dd if=/dev/zero of=pflash1.img bs=1m count=64
   dd if=QEMU_EFI.fd of=pflash0.img conv=notrunc
   dd if=QEMU_VARS.fd of=pflash1.img conv=notrunc
   

   • This step is optional, you can use -bios ~/Downloads/QEMU_EFI.fd instead of -drive ...if=pflash lines in the next step,
     but in that case, any changes in EFI will not be persistent.

8. Download Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview

   https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewARM64

9. Convert VHDX downloaded Windows image to qcow2 format

   It seems that VHDX often gets broken while it is being used, so probably it is better to convert it to qcow2 format before using it.

   qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 ~/Downloads/Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX ~/Downloads/Windows10.qcow2
   

10. Run Windows 10

    ./qemu-system-aarch64 
      -monitor stdio 
      -M virt,highmem=off 
      -accel hvf 
      -cpu cortex-a72 
      -smp 4 
      -m 4096 
      -drive file=~/Downloads/pflash0.img,format=raw,if=pflash,readonly=on 
      -drive file=~/Downloads/pflash1.img,format=raw,if=pflash 
      -device ramfb 
      -device qemu-xhci 
      -device usb-kbd 
      -device usb-tablet 
      -device intel-hda 
      -device hda-duplex 
      -nic user,model=virtio 
      -drive file=~/Downloads/Windows10.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=none,id=boot,cache=writethrough 
      -device nvme,drive=boot,serial=boot
    

    • Please modify each path to the image depends on your environment.
    • Hit ESC while you see TianoCore, then Device Manager, OVMF Platform Configuration, Change Preferred Resolution for Next Boot to change screen resolution.
    • To add more resolutions, follow “Build EDK II OVMF EFI image from the source code” below and modify OvmfPkg/QemuRamfbDxe/QemuRamfb.c then build new QEMU_EFI.fd.
    • Use -device usb-tablet instead of -device usb-mouse allows transparently moving mouse cursor.
    • -device intel-hda -device hda-duplex to enable audio.
    • -nic user,model=virtio is the network interface. To enable it, see the following section.

Enable the internet

VirtIO NIC is not enabled by default. To make it works, you need to install a device driver.

1. Download VirtIO device drivers ISO from Fedora Project.

   https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/virtio-win-0.1.190-1/virtio-win-0.1.190.iso

2. Mount device drivers ISO

   Add next options to qemu-system-aarch64.

   -drive file=~/Downloads/virtio-win-0.1.190.iso,media=cdrom,if=none,id=drivers 
   -device usb-storage,drive=drivers
   

   Please modify each path to the image depends on your environment.

3. Disable device driver signature enforcement

   Boot Windows, then right click Windows Start button, then select Command Prompt (Admin).

   Use bcdedit to enable test-signed device drivers.

   bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON
   

   Then reboot Windows.

   See here for the details.

4. Install driver

   Once Windows booted again, then right click Windows Start button, then select Device Manager.

   In Device Manager, select View menu then Devices by Connection.

   Navigate in the device tree, select ACPU ARM64-based PC, Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System, PCI Express Root Complex, then you will see one Unknown device there.
   (There are many Unknown device in tree but the one under PCI Express Root Complex is the VirtIO NIC.)

   Right click Unknown device then select Update Drivers, then Browse my computer for drivers, then select D:NetKVMw10ARM64.

   Click Next to install Red Hat VertIO Ethernet Adapter.

Compact disk image

The disk image, Windows10.qcow2, can be getting bigger as using Windows, especially after Windows Update, even if you delete files.

If the disk image is too big, you may want to compact it to release free space.

1. Use Defragment and Optimize Drives coming with Windows 10 and optimize C: drive.

2. Download SDelete. Run SDelete64a -z C: by using Administrator Command Prompt to zero-fill free space.
   This may take a while. While running this command, the disk image can be bigger, so be sure Mac have enough free space.

3. Shutdown Windows, then run next command on Mac. This may take a while.
   Since this command creates compacted disk image, so be sure Mac has enough free space.

   qemu-img convert -O qcow2 ~/Downloads/Windows10.qcow2 ~/Downloads/Windows10_compacted.qcow2
   

4. Replace Windows10.qcow2 by compacted Windows10_compacted.qcow2.

Running Ubuntu Server for ARM64

Follow the same steps for Windows 10 to prepare QEMU, then download Ubuntu Server for ARM64 and install it.

1. Follow previous steps from 1. to 7. to prepare QEMU.

2. Create an empty disk image.

   ./qemu-img create -f qcow2 ~/Downloads/ubuntu.qcow2 40G 
   

3. Download Ubuntu Server for ARM64

   https://ubuntu.com/download/server/arm

4. Install Ubuntu Server for ARM

   ./qemu-system-aarch64 
     -monitor stdio 
     -M virt,highmem=off 
     -accel hvf 
     -cpu cortex-a72 
     -smp 4 
     -m 4096 
     -drive file=~/Downloads/pflash0.img,format=raw,if=pflash,readonly=on 
     -drive file=~/Downloads/pflash1.img,format=raw,if=pflash 
     -device virtio-gpu-pci 
     -display default,show-cursor=on 
     -device qemu-xhci 
     -device usb-kbd 
     -device usb-tablet 
     -device intel-hda 
     -device hda-duplex 
     -drive file=~/Downloads/ubuntu.qcow2,if=virtio,cache=writethrough 
     -cdrom ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.1-live-server-arm64.iso
   

   • Follow instruction to install Ubuntu Server. Once it’s installed, -cdrom argument is not needed.

Build EDK II OVMF EFI image from the source code

Follow the previous instructions to run Ubuntu Server for ARM64.

1. Checkout EDK II source code.

   git clone --depth 1 --branch edk2-stable202011 https://github.com/tianocore/edk2.git
   cd edk2
   git submodule update --init --recursive
   

   You may want to disable xHCI due to current Hypervisor.framework patch limitation.
   Comment out MdeModulePkg/Bus/Pci/XhciDxe/XhciDxe.inf in /ArmVirtPkg/ArmVirtQemu.dsc and /ArmVirtPkg/ArmVirtQemuFvMain.fdf.inc. Probably this is no longer needed.

2. Build it.

   sudo apt install iasl python3 python3-distutils uuid-dev make g++
   source edksetup.sh
   make -C BaseTools
   build -a AARCH64 -t GCC5 -p ArmVirtPkg/ArmVirtQemu.dsc
   

   Then, you will get QEMU_EFI.fd and QEMU_VARS.fd in Build/ArmVirtQemu-AARCH64/DEBUG_GCC5/FV.

   • The easiest way to take these files to the host macOS, run Remote Login on macOS then scp these to 10.0.2.2.

   • To build these on x86_64 environment, use following toolchain to cross compile.

     sudo apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu
     env GCC5_AARCH64_PREFIX=aarch64-linux-gnu- build -a AARCH64 -t GCC5 -p ArmVirtPkg/ArmVirtQemu.dsc