This is something I didn’t come upon until recently: VMWare Fusion Pro ($199 I think?) allows you to connect USB devices to a *remote* windows Virtual Machine - it’s essentially USB over IP!
I program ham radios & code my car with proprietary USB cables and Windows software. I even bought a 2012 Macbook Pro just to run Windows as to not break my "workflow."
Well, as it turns out, that was unnecessary. My “home lab” already included a Mac Mini. After reading (twitter @stroughtonsmith) Steve Troughton Smith’s adventures with ESXi, I decided to give it a shot. ESXi is a free hypervisor (“base operating system just to run virtual machines”) that I was able to install on my Mac Mini (but you can install it on any x86 "server" on their hardware compatibility list).
I previously had a Rasberry Pi that I used as a small webserver and ssh jump host that I migrated to an Ubuntu VM on the ESXi host. Then, I migrated a Windows 10 VM that I used to run in Fusion on my Intel Macbook over to ESXi.
Now, from anywhere, I can VPN (or ssh+port forward) into my home network, launch Fusion Pro, select “Connect to server” and connect to the Windows VM. I can then attach USB devices from my M1 Mac to Windows - remotely!
I hope this helps someone else make the transition to M1!
I program ham radios & code my car with proprietary USB cables and Windows software. I even bought a 2012 Macbook Pro just to run Windows as to not break my "workflow."
Well, as it turns out, that was unnecessary. My “home lab” already included a Mac Mini. After reading (twitter @stroughtonsmith) Steve Troughton Smith’s adventures with ESXi, I decided to give it a shot. ESXi is a free hypervisor (“base operating system just to run virtual machines”) that I was able to install on my Mac Mini (but you can install it on any x86 "server" on their hardware compatibility list).
I previously had a Rasberry Pi that I used as a small webserver and ssh jump host that I migrated to an Ubuntu VM on the ESXi host. Then, I migrated a Windows 10 VM that I used to run in Fusion on my Intel Macbook over to ESXi.
Now, from anywhere, I can VPN (or ssh+port forward) into my home network, launch Fusion Pro, select “Connect to server” and connect to the Windows VM. I can then attach USB devices from my M1 Mac to Windows - remotely!
I hope this helps someone else make the transition to M1!
