Many macbook users like me who also happen to be linux fans often need to use linux and they don’t want to carry two machines. I carry 1 machine which is my macbook air with M2 chip. This method which I am going to show you is probably the fastest way to install and start using ubuntu on your macbook. This method will work on Macbook M1,M2,M3 and M4 chips.
Download & Install UTM
Go ahead and open up the UTM download page and download it. You can download it from the Mac app store as well for $10. External download is free so I’d just stick with it.
“UTM.dmg” file will be downloaded, open it and you’ll see a window like this:
Drag the UTM icon over to the Applications icon. Once done, UTM will be installed. Now, go to applications and look for the UTM icon, click on it, and open UTM.
Download & Install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS using UTM on Mac
Now, you need to have Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ISO. Make sure you download ISO based on ARM architecture and not AMD. AMD architecture is not supported in the UTM so it won’t work. Download ARM based Ubuntu 24.04 LTS from here.
Once downloaded, you need to come to the UTM app and open it. From this window, click on “Create a New Virtual Machine”.
A new window will pop up, in this window click on ‘Virtualize’.
Select the operating system as ‘Linux’.
In the next window, click on the ‘browse’ button and select the downloaded Ubuntu 24.04 ARM ISO file. Once selected then click on the button ‘Continue’ to go to the next step. Leave Virtualization Engine and Boot Image Type options unchecked like in the screenshot below.
Now, select the RAM as 8GB, CPU Cores should be 8, and check the option “Enable hardware OpenGL Acceleration”. Finally hit the ‘Continue’ button to go to the next step.
In this window, select the storage space for your operating system. I’ll do 100 GB. You can do 80GB or less depending upon your Macbook’s storage.
In this phase, select the ‘browse’ option first and then select ‘Downloads’ and click on the open button. It will select the download folder as its path. Then click on ‘Continue’ to move on to the next step.
Here, first name the machine whatever you want, I have named it Ubuntu 24.04 LTS so I can recognize it easily if I have multiple virtual machines setup. Then, check the option ‘Open VM Settings’. Finally, save it.
After saving, you’ll see a VM settings window pop up, here if you wanna make any changes like retina display or even you can make changes to the RAM or storage here. If you don’t want to make any changes then simply save it and do nothing. FYI, I haven’t added a SS for that so read the above lines carefully please.
Once that step is through, you can now see your virtual machine in your UTM interface. Click on the play button in the top right corner.
Now, you will see a new window and here select the first option which is already selected, and hit enter or return key.
Now, select the language. I’ll keep it as English, you can select any other language if you want. After selecting the language, hit the return key to go to the next step.
In the next step, you will see the option to update to the new installer or use the old one. I’d like to go with the option to update to a new one. Select ‘update to the new installer’ and hit the return key. It would start to download and then install it automatically, you need to do nothing.
In this step, if you want to change the layout of your keyboard if you want to, I’ll keep it the same way and hit done to move on to the next step.
In this step, ‘Ubuntu Server’ option is already checked. You want to move up with the upwards arrow key and check the ‘Search for third-party drivers’ option by pressing the return key and then come back to the ‘Done’ option using the downward arrow key.
In the next 4 steps you need to just keep the ‘Done’ option selected and move forward. FYI, I am not adding SS for these steps.
Next a new window will pop up for ‘Network Configuration’, just hit the return key while ‘Done’ is selected.
Now, in the next step of ‘Proxy Configuration’, keep everything as it is and select ‘Done’ to move to the next step.
In the next step, ‘Ubuntu archive mirror configuration’, just select the ‘Done’ option and move on.
In this step, ‘Guided storage configuration’, move down to the ‘Done’ option with down arrow keys and hit the return key.
In this ‘Storage configuration’ window where you can see file system summary, you need to hit the ‘Done’ option and then a pop up will show up where you need to select ‘Continue’ and hit the return key.
Now, in this step, you need to write down your name, your servers name, and your user name and select a password. Once written all the info then select done and move on to the next step.
In the next step, it will ask you to upgrade to Ubuntu Pro, just leave everything as it is and select ‘Continue’.
Now, select the ‘Install OpenSSH server’ option by hitting the enter key and select ‘Done’.
In the next step of ‘Third-party drivers’, just move on by selecting ‘Continue’. I haven’t included a SS for it here.
In the next step of ‘Featured Server Snaps’, just move down to the ‘Done’ option and hit the return key.
Now, it’d start to install and update the system. It’d take a few minutes here. Once the installation is completed, you will see a window like I have shown below, here you need to select ‘Reboot now’.
You’d see that now it’s not rebooting and in order for it to reboot you need to clear the ISO image from UTM. To do that, simply click the power button in the top left corner of the window.
It would ask for confirmation, Select ‘OK’ and close this Ubuntu 24.04 LTS window.
Now, in the UTM window, select the option CD/DVD and click on ‘Clear’. It would clear the ARM ISO file of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. This will then allow Ubuntu 24.04 LTS server to boot.
Now, when you click on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS machine and run it with the play button in the top right corner, the ubuntu server will boot normally. We have not yet installed Ubuntu with GUI, it’s a server so few steps are remaining. Enter your username and password which we selected and bingo, your ubuntu server is on the charge.
Now, run this command:
$ sudo apt update
Next, run the following command to install tasksel:
$ sudo apt install tasksel
When it asks you to continue, press ‘y’. Tasksel is basically a command that simplifies the installation of a group of packages. As we needed to install the Ubuntu desktop environment so we needed to have it.
Next run the following command:
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop
Now, go ahead and reboot the server with the following command:
$ sudo reboot now
Ok, now it will take a while to reboot, sit back and relax for a few minutes.
When it’s done, it will show you this screen which means that Ubuntu desktop environment installation has been successful.
Just login and start using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Conclusion
You can install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on your Mac with m1, m2, m3, or m4 chips. Simply install UTM as shown in this article, create a virtual machine and use Ubuntu ARM based ISO, and follow steps in sequence. Once that is done, it’ll install the Ubuntu server on your virtual machine. Install tasksel on your Ubuntu server which will then help you install the Ubuntu desktop environment smoothly.
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