[traderj0e]

Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it?

Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook.

P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dead; why is someone downvoting that??

[hirvi74]

> have you actually done it?

Yes.

What do you mean by "works exactly the same?" The same as Ubuntu installed on an ARM laptop? No, there is not GUI, DE, and a lot of tools are stripped.

You can literally pull this down and get it up and running in minutes:

https://hub.docker.com/_/ubuntu/

Rosetta is not necessary to get this working either. Now, there maybe some warts with DNS that you might encounter depending on if you have a certain VPNs running, use dnsmasq, etc.. But there are potential workarounds for many issues.

If you want a full VM, I would recommend Lima/Colima. If you need a full VM with GUI and all, then maybe use something like Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc..

[traderj0e]

I mean like same as Ubuntu on an x86 laptop for general work. This is assuming you don't have any specific need for x86 binaries, but you also never know what might randomly require it. Would've tried it myself but I'm away from my Mac rn. I'll try again.

Last time I tried UTM specifically for reading an ext4-formatted SD card in my MacBook's internal slot, I couldn't get it to interface with the reader, but that works on Chromebooks' Linux VM supposedly.

[hirvi74]

> I mean like same as Ubuntu on an x86 laptop for general work.

I would say no, but then again, I would also not recommend using any type of container for that type of work either.

I use Container on macOS to build containers for things like Claude Code, Node.js, Java, etc.. You know, software I want no where near my host OS. I mount a directory in the container, if needed, and it's smooth sailing.

I do believe Container allows for one to run x86 containers with Rosetta, but I also know once you enable Rosetta, it's easier to reinstall your OS than to uninstall. I like to keep things tidy, so I will not go down this path.

> ext4-formatted SD card in my MacBook's internal slot

I would not use Container nor any other containerization tool for this task regardless of whether it is possible or not. I would be surprised if any VM client would be able to get this working too, but I've been out of the VM world for a bit.

It's also worth mentioning that come macOS 28, Rosetta will be dead and gone except for a select set of video games. That version of Rosetta will essentially be stripped down to the point of working just enough for those games and nothing more. So, I would not get too attached to the idea of running x86 binaries on macOS for too much longer.

I believe there may be some tools that can read ext4 on macOS, but UTM not reading from the host's SD Card is unsurprising. I have never used UTM, but I would imagine it would not have the capability to pass the SD reader through, but I could be entirely wrong.

I'd seriously recommend buying the cheapest burner Chromebook, x86 machine, VPS, or whatever you need if you think running x86 binaries and reading/writing to/from ext4 formatted storage will be in your future. You could maybe try an external USB SD reader, but I cannot comment if that would work either.

[inventor7777]

I've used UTM before to install Ubuntu on my Mac Studio (M4) and it even supported my 4K70 monitor.

To be fair there is some config and tweaking required, but for a free tool it seems pretty good. Parallels has a better EXPERIENCE but I don't use VMs often; when I need raw Linux I just use one of my homelab servers.