You can download the Docker App for M1, which is in preview. Emulation doesn’t have virtualization features, which the Docker app requires.

The arm64 native version is available on the VS Code Insiders and works really well. The amd64 version works perfectly well, however, the terminal will be an amd64 process, which may cause some programs to also run as amd64. In some cases, I had to install preview editions of software, but everything worked very well for me. We engineers sometimes use very low-level system capabilities. The tools you use for development are likely still catching up to this architectural change, and will be for some time. However, you can also install it manually via /usr/sbin/softwareupdate -install-rosetta The OS will automatically detect that Rosetta is needed and prompt you to install it. To emulate an application, you just need to install Rosetta 2.

I found that if an ARM-native version is not available for an application, the emulated one works just fine and there’s no performance drawback that I can notice.

CompatibilityĪll the software I need to use “just works”. My Xeon Linux-based workstation suddenly feels old. This is why I think ARM is the future, even if it might take a decade for the mainstream cloud to migrate over. It also means longer battery cycles for non-cloud use-cases (less waste, more bang for the buck). A number of fast-growing tech giants (besides Apple) are pouring a ton of money into making ARM work for a ton of use-cases: Nvidia (trying to buy ARM Holdings from SoftBank) and Amazon (deep investment in the new Graviton processors) are the two that primarily come to mind.Īs you might know, in processors low energy consumption (and low heat dissipation) often equates to the ability to scale processing efficiently for large workloads. It’s a pretty amazing piece of engineering, and in many ways, I think that the ARM architecture is the future.

The typical first reaction that you get when using this is “it runs my Docker stack without sounding like a plane taking off?”. So I’ve been using my new M1-based MacBook Pro for a couple of months for a mix of development, email, and other things an open-source maintainer does day-to-day.

Arm64 emulator mac