Introduction
I’ve recently purchased a Mac mini with a M1 processor. The M1 processor is a processor that Apple developed to power the news Macs. If you would like to read more about the M1 chips, check out PC Magazine’s article on it.
I was getting set to install VirtualBox and set up a Fedora virtual machine, then realized that VirtualBox does not support the M1 processor. In order to run a virtual machine on a Apple Silicon chip, you need to use Parallels, UTM, or Docker. I haven’t used UTM before so I thought I would try it out here.
UTM is free to use, is open-source, and is supposed to be easy to run.
Let’s give it a try!
Procedure
Prerequisites
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Installation of UTM
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Download Fedora 36 Workstation – aarch64 Live ISO
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Start UTM and click on Virtualize:
2. Select Other from Custom install option:
3. Click Next and then select Browse and select the Fedora iso that you downloaded and click Continue:
4. Set the memory, number of CPU Cores and then click on Continue:
5. Specify the size of the drive to use for the virtual machine and then click on Continue:
6. If you want to share a directory between your host and virtual machine, select the directory and then click on Continue.
7. Review the Summary page and change the Name of the virtual machine from Virtual Machine to something more descriptive. In this example, I’m calling mine Fedora 36. Click on Save.
8. Press the Run Selected VM button:
9. When the virtual machine starts up, you should see the boot menu. Use the up arrow key to select Start Fedora-Workstation-Live 36:
10. Select Install to Hard Drive:
11. Select language and click on Continue:
12. Select Installation Destination:
13. Make any changes to the disk layout and then click on Done:
14. Click on Being Installation:
15. Installation progress starts:
16. Click on Finish Installation:
17. Stop the virtual machine and then select Clear from the CD/DVD drop down and then start virtual machine again:
18, The Fedora 36 virtual machine boots and brings you to the Fedora setup screen. Click on Start Setup:
19. Set your privacy settings and then click Next:
20. Set your Third-Party Repositories option and click on Next:
21. Decide which (if any) online accounts you want to connect and then click Next or Skip:
22. Enter your name and username and then click on Next:
23. Enter a password to set for your account and click on Next:
24. Complete the set up by clicking on Start Using Fedora Linux:
Congratulations! Now you have Fedora 36 running in a UTM virtual machine on MacOS M1 Apple Silicon computer.
Troubleshooting
If you run into the following error message when you first try to install Fedora on UTM, be sure you have downloaded the ARM aarch64 ISO (Fedora-Workstation-Live-aarch64-36-1.5.iso):
