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by waon 2156 days ago
> Visit Wikipedia, in the search field type "virtual machine" but do not hit enter or search.

Wikipedia is useful tool, but it's wrong to rely on it for preciseness or the as absolute source of truth, especially on highly technical topics.

> This says nothing about whether the virtualization is entirely software, assisted by hardware, or entirely hardware.

Again, what does this even mean? What's your specific example for an "entirely software" virtualization or "entirely hardware" virtualization?

> A "software virtual machine" is a disambiguation that I chose indicating that the "machine" is implemented entirely in software with no help from special silicon (contrast with [2]). I can't fathom why that would be so controversial.

You can't just invent a new term without any explanation and wonder why people wouldn't just "get it."

> The entire thread comes down to this: the demo of x86 Linux running on Apple Silicon could very easily have been running in a virtual machine made entirely of software

Are you sure of this? I was assuming it was ARM Linux.

> No one claimed, as I recall, that Silicon implemented any hardware assistance for executing x86 code.

No one claimed that you claimed such a thing either.

2 comments

Where can I read about the true definition of virtualization?
If you really want a formal definition, you could read this:

https://profsandhu.com/cs6393_s14/popek-goldberg-1974.pdf

Though some details may arguably be outdated, the general concept applies.

Thanks, the first section is pretty simple and covers it well.
It was ARM Linux, one of the demos confirmed this.