Bitcraze VM with M1

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emwang
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:59 pm

Bitcraze VM with M1

Post by emwang »

Does the Bitcraze VM work with M1 Macs?
kristoffer
Bitcraze
Posts: 630
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2015 7:47 am

Re: Bitcraze VM with M1

Post by kristoffer »

I'm not sure, but I think a native install works, please see https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-c ... install.md
ecb
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Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2021 4:46 pm

Re: Bitcraze VM with M1

Post by ecb »

This is possible but it really isn't practical. See the attached screen shot from my M1 Air.

You can use the UTM emulator to run the VM. (https://mac.getutm.app) It's a bit of push-up just to get the VM running. And remember is is NOT virtualization, it's CPU emulation and it's dog slow.

Extract the virtual disk from the .ova file. The .ova file is just a tarball, change the extension and untar it
Convert the disk format from vmdk to qcow2 -- 'brew install qemu', then use 'qemu-img' to do the conversion.
qemu-img convert -p -f vmdk BitcrazeVM-disk001.vmdk BitcrazeVM-disk001.qcow2

Import the disk to a UTM VM. Disable UEFI booting, enable USB support in the 'Sharing' options.
The VM should then boot. Very slowly.
Once it's booted you can attach the controller and radio.
BUT ... once you connect to the 'copter the client gui will become so slow as to be useless. You can fly the Crazyflie but that's about all. I think the sheer volume of telemetry data overwhelms the client. Maybe if logging is reduced or disabled it would work better but I lost interest in pursuing it further. Running the client semi-natively on the M1 via Rosetta2 is probably the way to go.

Anyway - as an academic exercise it was entertaining.


vm snap.jpg
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