ACVM VS multipass

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.

Install Multipass from https://multipass.run

Multipass orchestrates virtual Ubuntu instances

Multipass I love Multipass for quick Ubuntu instances spun up for testing or as a playground. Wish I would have known and used of it sooner.

If you just need Ubuntu then you can try "Multipass" from Canonical (https://multipass.run/). Works quite well on my M2 Air. I haven't tried using Linux GUI with it though as I need only terminal based VMs.

Multipass is pretty clutch for trivial VMs on MacOs for sure. I use it for a bunch of ssh jump boxes running vpns to different sites. The macOS build does not support custom images (lest not without [some truly insane hacks](https://github.com/canonical/multipass/issues/1260#issuecomm...) , which doesn’t really matter for what I use it for but it is kind of a bummer. If you need something with a little more grunt but don’t want to go full blown with writing your own QEMU tooling or fussing with something like UTM or Parallels, [quickemu](https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu) is a really nice qemu wrapper with sane defaults that can expose a whole lot of power if you need it.

I would be cautious or even distrustful of using anything from Oracle. VirtualBox components come under three different licenses - GPLv2, personal use & evaluation license, and an enterprise license. Their VirtualBox license FAQ [1] gives them enough leeway to change future licenses at will. If an exploit is discovered in your old VirtualBox and they've changed the license, you're out of luck.

We've moved our development to KVM and Virtual Machine Manager on Linux [3] and UTM on Mac [4]. There are other options to run your VM, such as Multipass [5] or VirtualBuddy [6].

On a digressive topic - it was fun migrating our legacy application server stack from Oracle Java (old & poorly considered decision) to OpenJDK, thanks to their license [2].

[1] https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Licensing_FAQ

[2] https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk-faqs.htm...

[3] https://ubuntu.com/blog/kvm-hyphervisor

[4] https://mac.getutm.app/

[5] https://multipass.run/

[6] https://github.com/insidegui/VirtualBuddy

How does it compare to https://multipass.run/?

If you have a reasonably beefy computer, you can always try setting up Multipass and set up 2-3 nodes for a k8s cluster, it's how I'm doing my own certification training. I do have a k3s Raspberry Pi cluster, but with Pi prices being what they are still it'd almost be cheaper to do a cloud setup. ☹️