Debian running as VM on Mac M1

[kal800]

Hi,

I'm doing some development on linux VMs. They are currently hosted on PC machine running ProxMox and that has worked for me quite good. Now I'm starting another project that requires some more CPU and I/O power. I have plenty of that on my Mac Studio and would like to make use of it. I've installed Parallels and run out-of-the-box Debian, but that one is fully loaded with options that I do not need and preinstalled quite useless linux GUI, while I need minimal and slim CLI based installation. Is it possible to have that using Parallels, or maybe UTM would be better solution? Also, if I wanted to install VM from ISO, which architecture should I choose in that case? I'd rather not depend on Rosetta, due to performance issues - is there any linux, which runs natively on Mac M1?

Kal800

 

[bobcomer]

Actually VMWare Fusion might support Linux better, though their product isn't as mature on Apple M series. I pick that or Parallels easily over UTM, though given your requirements, it may work, but it isn't very stable.

You'll want to use the ARM version of Debian. And yes, running a thin version without a GUI is possible on any of the three.

 

[chrfr]

I wanted to install VM from ISO, which architecture should I choose in that case? I'd rather not depend on Rosetta, due to performance issues - is there any linux, which runs natively on Mac M1?

Kal800

You'd use the arm64 builds of your Linux platforms. There are several that work in Apple Silicon virtualized environments.

 

[chrfr]

Actually VMWare Fusion might support Linux better, though their product isn't as mature on Apple M series. I pick that or Parallels easily over UTM, though given your requirements, it may work, but it isn't very stable.

You'll want to use the ARM version of Debian. And yes, running a thin version without a GUI is possible on any of the three.

I agree, that for Linux, VMware Fusion seems to be better than Parallels.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

You could try Multipass from Canonical. It creates Ubuntu virtual machines very easily.

Multipass orchestrates virtual Ubuntu instances

Multipass is a CLI to launch and manage VMs on Windows, Mac and Linux that simulates a cloud environment with support for cloud-init. Get Ubuntu on-demand with clean integration to your IDE and version control on your native platform.

multipass.run

 

[MrGunny94]

Make sure you want to use arm64, if your requirement is x86 you should just either build a mini PC for VMs or have something hosted in the cloud.

I'm using the cloud setup for work and a NAS at home for the rest of the stuff for my home labs.

 

[haralds]

Actually VMWare Fusion might support Linux better, though their product isn't as mature on Apple M series. I pick that or Parallels easily over UTM, though given your requirements, it may work, but it isn't very stable.

You'll want to use the ARM version of Debian. And yes, running a thin version without a GUI is possible on any of the three.

Could you be specific on how VMware Fusion is better on Apple Silicon? Both use the Apple HyperVisor.
I use Parallels Desktop mainly for Windows 11 and find it superior to VMWare Fusion in its easy of use and feature set. I switched after being a VMware user since the 90s starting with the first Workstation beta. But I gave up on them after they first ignored the M1.

 

[bobcomer]

Could you be specific on how VMware Fusion is better on Apple Silicon? Both use the Apple HyperVisor.
I use Parallels Desktop mainly for Windows 11 and find it superior to VMWare Fusion in its easy of use and feature set. I switched after being a VMware user since the 90s starting with the first Workstation beta. But I gave up on them after they first ignored the M1.

I'm more going on reputation and my own experience of VMWare on x86. On that platform they supported Linux MUCH more completely than Parallels, both in added integration utilities and base support. Where I could always get a Linux distribution going in Fusion, I couldn't always in Parallels. Parallels supports current Windows better, there's no doubt of that, on both x86 and Apple M chips, but they don't support linux as well on x86, and I suspect it will be that way on M chips eventually if it isn't already. These days I don't use Linux with either on my Mac Studio, so I can't say for sure, hence my caveat. (I went back to an intel mac for most of my stuff)

 

[dmccloud]

Could you be specific on how VMware Fusion is better on Apple Silicon? Both use the Apple HyperVisor.
I use Parallels Desktop mainly for Windows 11 and find it superior to VMWare Fusion in its easy of use and feature set. I switched after being a VMware user since the 90s starting with the first Workstation beta. But I gave up on them after they first ignored the M1.

In all honesty, Parallels is and likely will always be Windows-first in terms of OS support. VMware is focused on supporting the widest range of operating systems possible, so it has a lot of tuning towards supporting Linux-based distros. It's not about whether Parallels or VMware are better overall, just which app has the best Linux support. While I use Parallels myself on my Mac, I also use VMWare for anything Linux-based.

 

[bobcomer]

In all honesty, Parallels is and likely will always be Windows-first in terms of OS support. VMware is focused on supporting the widest range of operating systems possible, so it has a lot of tuning towards supporting Linux-based distros. It's not about whether Parallels or VMware are better overall, just which app has the best Linux support. While I use Parallels myself on my Mac, I also use VMWare for anything Linux-based.

That's a good way to put it. I too run both VMWare and Parallels on all my Macs. (Hyper-v and VMWare on my WIndows PCs.) Different jobs...

 

[haralds]

After using VMware Fusion for ever since it was released I switched to Parallels Desktop on my first M1 and now have it on both a PowerBook Pro, Studio, and an older Intel PowerBook i9. I find its performance incl. Graphics, feature set, and ease of use are superior to VMware Fusion for both Windows 11 and Linux. It is also receiving dedicated support with frequent updates and feature improvements. I tried the latest release of VMware Fusion (I own the previous version for Intel) and decided to stay with Parallels for that reason. The per system licensing of Parallels is more expensive than the per-user pricing of past VMware Fusion versions. But I use this for dev work (and games) every day.

Now to answer the OP's question. I have installed Debian from a server ISO to reduce the footprint. You can use also a web install image. I use the character display installer to select only what I want.
You should use ARM64 on Apple Silicon and Intel on x86_64.

If you are running the ARM64 version of Linux on Parallels Desktop/Apple Silicon, you can actually install Rosetta2 on Debian for Linux apps not yet ported to ARM64. More here: https://developer.apple.com/documen...ning_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta

 

[ginnm]

I use UTM with Debian, Arch i3 and Fedora Beta on a Mac mini Pro. I no longer use Parallels 18.
Clipboard and directory sharing work great.

 

[apostolosdt]

Running Debian as Parallels VM on base Mini M1 and cannot find any info on how to move the apps dock from the left-hand side to the bottom. There is a wealth of posts regarding that issue on Ubuntu, but nothing on native Debian. Any help, please?