The first release of the Lima project (Linux-on-Mac, macOS subsystem for Linux) has been published, which develops a layer for running Linux applications on macOS, addressing issues similar to those of the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). The project code is written in Go and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
The principle of Lima involves launching virtual machines with Linux in a macOS environment, with built-in support for the containerd toolkit to manage the launching of ready images of isolated containers compatible with Docker. Linux distributions supported include Ubuntu and Fedora.
Applications built for ARM (aarch64) and x86_64 architectures can be launched, including running ARM builds in an x86 environment and x86 builds in an ARM environment. QEMU with the HVF accelerator, utilizing the hypervisor included in macOS (Hypervisor.framework), is used for supporting non-native platforms.
In the Linux environment, automatic support is provided for file sharing and port forwarding. This functionality is implemented using a utility developed by the project called sshocker, which uses ssh for port forwarding and reverse sshfs for mounting external directories.
Future plans include performance optimization, creating Homebrew packages, expanding the number of supported Linux distributions, adapting for operation over Windows, Linux, and BSD, and developing a graphical interface in the form of a tray applet. Instead of sshfs and ssh, there are plans to transition to using VirtFS and vsock.
Source: opennet.ru
