Finally going ARM

Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 9:19 PM UTC

I thought about it for quite a while, now I did it and bought a MacBook Pro 14" mit M1 Pro SOC. It's the 10/16 Core model with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD (3-5GB/s read/write speed!). There were many reviews about this processors and the machines Apple created on top of it - and I can only chime in that this is a game changer. It's so fast and power efficient. Sorry, Intel - you are dead, at least for a non-gaming machine that does rely on a power outlet. For mobile, ARM with 5nm technology (or even better) is the way to go.

This computer is mainly for private usage. I am doing music production with Logic Pro X, video editing with DaVinci Resolve and of course sometimes some coding with HCL Notes and Domino. The latter would have been a challenge but in the end it was simple.

Serdar and others tried it before me and I was confident to do so, too. This post is about on how to run HCL Notes and Domino on this amazing machine.

HCL Notes for macOS

It runs. Just install it like you used to do with Intel Macs.

Notes, Designer, Admin

This is the part where a VM comes into play. I use Parallels for years now on my work machine, running Windows 10 and everything I need for my development tasks. Running it on a M1 (ARM) is something different.

I really was surprised how easy it is. With Parallels you just create a new VM using Windows 11 ARM. Fun fact: Windows is the part that even on this machine will slow down everything and will crash from time to time... What a suprise.

From the point when you have Windows up and running it's basically the same with the HCL software. I currently run 12.0.1FP1 for the clients and the server. Yes, I installed a server on Windows 11 ARM and it works. FP1 for the client took me two attempts, so YMMV.

Unfortunately I could not use the Domino server with Docker on the Mac host like I use to on my Intel machine - this is #1 on my wish list for the next releases, to support ARM architecture.

Plugins

Anyway, I now have a fully working environment for Notes development on this beast. Even OSGI extensions are running using the usual update site way to install them. One thing that doesn't work is to run Domino as a Windows service. There was no entry created in the service list but this is fine for me. Next is to install Domino Volt on it, too. It's like with other add-ons like FP and OSGI: restart the server several times and then it will work. You may have to kill tasks when you try it for the first time.

Actually I wasn't aware that Notes and Domino will run on Windows ARM, but hey, I take it as it is!

Of course, this is NOT supported by HCL and you will do this at your own risk and fun.







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