How to Run Ubuntu (ARM64) in MacBook Pro (ARM64) With Multipass

Running GUI Programs in Ubuntu on Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3)

Photo by Gabriel Heinzer on Unsplash

In a recent post, I explained how to run Ubuntu (amd64) in a MacBook Pro (arm64) despite the Architecture differences in a Docker container.

How to Run Ubuntu (AMD64) in Macbook Pro (ARM64) With Docker

The key was to use an emulator for Docker (qemu) to emulate the architecture differences.

There is however another way — multipass — to run virtual machines running Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution inside your Mac.

However, it supports only ARM64 architecture and not ADM64.

And it supports only Ubuntu — no other Linux distributions.

Therefore Docker with qemu and support for X11 stays the most interesting way to containerize/virtualize a different architecture (amd64) in arm64 machines.

Multipass is used also in Ubuntu to run other Linux or Ubuntu distributions inside Ubuntu linux.