July 2026 · 7 min read
dd — VM-less native JIT containers for Mac
Every Docker setup on a Mac keeps a Linux VM running all day. I wanted a container to just be a process, so I built dd — native Apple-Silicon code plus a userspace kernel, no VM. Why, how it works, and honest numbers: the same x86 binary up to 23× faster than qemu emulation, real openssl crypto mapped to ARM hardware, and where dd still trails a Rosetta VM.
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dd