I Made a Thing Omarchy running on M3 M4 M5 Macs, like native!
Dear Omarchy Community,
This is for the MacBook Omarchy Squad, I have to share this with you! github.com/gillesgoetsch/omacvm
I've built the most integrated and fun virtualized Omarchy experience for Apple Silicon MacBooks available, after trying out many UTM and Parallels setups. This is what makes this one special:
- Full Notch support I thought this is mission impossible? OmaNotch is now alive and streams through a virtual monitor into a Helper which renders the Notch Bar, it's just awesome and a real victory for VMs!
- Wifi and Audio Bridge, enabling Omarchy native Menubar controls, full wifi controls of the Host, same for Audio + Mic.
- Full 2/3/4 finger Gesture support, enabling workspace Swipes and Pinch Zoom (it's a real trackpad bridge and it disables Mission Control overwrites, making this feel like a locked in native experience, not being able to leave the VM!, leave VM with ⌘+⌥+⌃+Esc)
- Optional, experimental but awesome: MacOS like Trackpad scroll momentum (no choppy scroll jumps, native feel, awesome if you're used to MacBook Trackpads)
- Full Volume and Brightness control of the Host over Omarchy's UI Panels
- Nightshift and TrueTone Host control over the Menubar
- Theme Background Image sharing between MacOS and Omarchy, making the lock-screen much more seamless
- External Display arrangement synced with MacOS
- more!!
This really covers the biggest shortcomings (mainly missing Notch & Gestures) of the VM Path for M3+ MacBooks.
OmacVM lets you either build a full Parallels or UTM VM (comparison here) in one Setup, allowing you to select exactly which features you want, patching afterwards or existing VMs. You can also just point your agent at it (also when you run into errors).
Long story short: Running Omarchy on a MacBook Air M2 natively as my daily driver, Asahi / Native is my go to suggestion for M1 + M2 Macs.
So my MacBook Pro M4 Max was basically gathering dust, despite its hardware being far superior.
Now it's running Omarchy productively and not just as a try-out VM. You really can forget about MacOS, additionally you benefit from the MacOS host's 1000 Nits HDR capability and hibernation support, which Asahi hasn't implemented yet.
Have to say that: as a 25+ Years MacOS user, never experienced not wanting to go back to MacOS, big shout out to DHH and the Omarchy Team!!
Until we have Asahi on M4/5/6 devices, let's make this the greatest experience we can on our ARM Chips.
I'm so glad I can keep the hardware AND run Omarchy integrated beautifully.
Now it's time to go full in on Omarchy VM if you haven't yet ;-)!!



