ACVM VS lima

https://github.com/ubenmackin/ACVM is a good free alternative, arguably better than utm. Parallels is unmatched though

If you want something non-commercial, I've been using ACVM and UTM (UTM exclusively, these days) to run ARM Debian and Ubuntu.

If you absolutely need to boot into Debian, booting on Apple Silicon Macs isn't possible currently, and would be up to the Debian community to eventually support. If you'd be willing to use a VM, I've been using ACVM and UTM since I got my M1 in 2020 to run Ubuntu and Debian for ARM. (There's also Parallels Desktop for Apple Silicon which I've personally used for Ubuntu; I can't imagine there's any reason it wouldn't work for Debian for ARM.)

I use (and prefer) ACVM, which is another front end for QEMU which is an open source emulator and virtualization environment that on its own can be a hassle to set up and use (which is why things like ACVM and UTM exist). Try them both and see what you like better. ACVM feels a little faster, for me. UTM is probably likely to be better supported, as we go forward.

You can run other ARM operating systems in virtualization. I've been using ACVM and UTM to run ARM versions of Debian and Ubuntu in QEMU. Running Windows on ARM is still wonky, and largely relies on Microsoft actually providing better support for WOA for virtual machines like Parallels or QEMU. You can't easily boot into Windows or Linux like you could on x86 Macs, but Asahi Linux is working on a version of Linux that will boot on ARM Macs; it's very much in beta. Use at your own risk. (I haven't needed Linux on the bare metal in ages; virtualization works fine for me. YMMV.)

I don't have a Mac Studio yet, but I'd been using ACVM to run ARM builds of Ubuntu and Debian on an M1 MacBook Pro. I've recently switched to UTM, as it seems to be more actively developed.

This is Ubuntu, running in ACVM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v8CsVLZRJQ

I use Ben Mackin's fork of ACVM over on GitHub, to run ARM versions of Ubuntu.

For Linux on M1, I use ARM Ubuntu in a Qemu VM, which I manage using Ben Mackin's fork of ACVM, available on Github.

Didn't test, but the release notes mention 3D acceleration for Linux is still not available. So, it depends on your definition of 'working'. You might be better of using https://github.com/ubenmackin/ACVM.

You can run a virtual machine (e.g. lima) from inside a nix-shell, exactly as you would do with a regular shell.

for others similarly curious, here's an example of the thing: https://github.com/noop-inc/template-java-spring-boot/blob/m...

they seem to be using the excellent lima <https://github.com/lima-vm/lima#readme> for booting on macOS; I run colima for its containerd and k8s support but strongly recommend both projects $(brew install lima colima)

Lima is what I use as well. It's quick and easy to just fire up a VM with default settings, but also very easy to configure with different file sharing options, port forwarding, different linux distributions, etc. (their examples are also pretty good IMO [1]).

In particular I use it to run an amd64 VM, which I need to run a stubborn service for work that doesn't run on arm CPUs.

[1] https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/tree/master/examples

Lima (1) is a project that packages Linux distros for MacOS and executes them via qemu in the backend. Maybe you could solve your problem by launching one of their vms and inspecting the command line it generates. You might find an option you were missing.

(1) https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

If you wish to delve into all the configuration possibilities for Lima VM, you can visit this resource.

I'd say Lima and Colima should be enough for most use cases:

https://lima-vm.io/

https://github.com/abiosoft/colima

Github: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

Lima wraps QEMU in a simple CLI, with neat features for container users, such as filesystem sharing and automatic localhost port forwarding, as well as DNS and proxy propagation for enterprise networks. Rancher Desktop wraps Lima with k3s integration and GUI.

Talks: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/blob/master/docs/talks.md