Bottom Line for VirtualBox on Mac with M1/M2

[jamjax]

Hello,

I think the state of things is that there is no useful VirtualBox version for the new Macs, correct?

I see this pinned topic and I want to make sure that I've interpreted it correctly: viewtopic.php?t=107344

Our development environment is Vagrant/VirtualBox-based (with an Ubuntu guest) and for one of our developers who has upgraded their laptop, it's proving difficult to switch to another hypervisor (VMWare). We'll get the wrinkles (and licensing) sorted eventually, but I wanted to make 100% sure that I'm not missing something about the current state of things with new Macs and VirtualBox.

Also a side question: Is it true that one cannot run arm64 ISOs on Vagrant? (I tried Ubuntu arm64 on my Intel Mac and it failed.)

Thanks.

[klaus]

You could try with the latest dev snapshots... they're not perfect but significantly better than the 7.0 stuff a year ago. For example they can run Linux/arm64 VMs, and the x64 emulation is also lots better (performance is still not great, we're on it).

BTW, check carefully if the competing products give you what you expect (they all spend a lot of words on not saying that they don't do any x64 emulation).

[jamjax]

Would you expect me to be able to run ubuntu-22.04.4-live-server-arm64.iso on my Intel Mac with VirtualBox dev snapshot [7.0.97 r161722 (Qt6.3.0)] or would I have to be on a Mac with the new architecture?

(I'm getting "No bootable medium found...")

[klaus]

You really need to make up your mind in one thread Now you switched seamlessly to (old) Intel Macs. No, those can't magically run arm64 code, for those you need an amd64 iso.

Initially you asked about Apple Silicon based stuff, and the associated package should be able to run ubuntu-22.04.4-live-server-arm64.iso.

[dbill]

I have installed and am running Ubuntu 24.04 (noble desktop arm64) on my M2 Mac Studio using VirtualBox-7.0.97-162578-macOSArm64. I have installed a number of programs and most seem to work fine. I've also been updating Ubuntu on a daily basis without issues waiting for the LTS version on 04/25. One thing, Ubuntu would not install manually which I tried first thinking it was more likely to work. But I was successful in installing unattended!

[dbill]

I now have also installed Ubuntu 24.04 on my M1 MBP.

(However, I have tried many different approaches and have had no success installing Windows 11)