On top of that, the Multipass 1.8 release adds support for using the Xfce Terminal for a better GUI experience, makes LXD the default backend on Linux, except for amd64, adds support for version -format, improves support for the MATE desktop environment, workflows runs-on support, and fixes several bugs.Ĭanonical also adds that, with this update, Multipass is now supported on every major computing platform.

In addition to Apple M1 support, the new Multipass release also introduces aliases to bring Ubuntu to your favorite terminal by linking commands from a virtual machine to commands on the host operating system. “Multipass is Canonical’s answer.”Īccording to Canonical’s product manager Nathan Hart, “Canonical wants to get developers running on Linux faster than any other option on the market, and the Multipass team has helped accomplish that.” Popular VM tools such as VirtualBox and VMWare either do not support the new architecture or are still in the preview stage,” said Canonical. “Until now, M1 users haven’t had many options for running Linux. In fact, Multipass promises to offer Apple M1 MacBook developers interesting in developing apps for the Linux/Ubuntu desktop the fastest way to run Linux cross-platform, running a Ubuntu VM in as little as 20 seconds. The company behind Ubuntu have updated Multipass to verison 1.8, a release that introduces support for setting up and running Ubuntu virtual machines on Apple M1 MacBook devices with minimal effort. Otherwise, it's the same wherever you get it from.Canonical informs 9to5Linux today about the latest release of their Multipass tool for orchestrating virtual Ubuntu instances on Apple M1 Macs. UTM is free and open-source, but the paid version in the Mac App Store provides automatic updates and helps support development. Under its skin is QEMU, a very old but still very good tool. UTM is another virtualization tool worth looking at, and it offers something the others currently do not. The icing on the cake is the Coherence mode, allowing you to run Linux apps outside the main Parallels window, almost as if they were native Apple Silicon Mac apps. Again, you'll be requiring Linux distros with ARM builds, but Parallels makes it super simple to download and install them. You're looking at $100 for a perpetual license, but it works really well and it's easy to use.

Alternatively, using the Virtualization Framework are more consumer-friendly tools from the likes of Parallels, UTM, and VMWare.Īlternatively, you can go for Parallels, but this one will cost you, and it isn't cheap. But some of the biggest names are available for ARM, including Ubuntu and Debian.

The caveat remains that you have to use an ARM-friendly Linux distribution (or 'distro'), so that could rule out your favorite.

Install ubuntu vm on mac