Virtualization on macOS#

UTM is a native macOS virtualization frontend built on QEMU. It works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs and is the easiest way to run Vitruvian on macOS.

  1. Download UTM from mac.getutm.app or the Mac App Store
  2. Click + to create a new VM
  3. Select Emulate → Linux
  4. Follow the setup wizard — assign at least 4 GB RAM and 2+ CPU cores
  5. In the drive settings, attach the Vitruvian ISO or raw image
  6. Set the display to VirtIO GPU
  7. Start the VM

Apple Silicon note#

On Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3…), Vitruvian runs under x86-64 emulation since there is no KVM-equivalent hardware acceleration for foreign architectures. Expect reduced performance compared to a native x86-64 host. ARM support in Vitruvian will change this in the future.

QEMU via Homebrew#

For more control over QEMU flags, install QEMU directly:

brew install qemu

Boot a raw image (Intel Mac)#

qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -accel hvf \
  -m 4096 \
  -smp 4 \
  -drive file=vitruvian.img,format=raw,if=virtio \
  -vga virtio \
  -display cocoa \
  -net nic,model=virtio \
  -net user \
  -rtc base=localtime

-accel hvf uses the macOS Hypervisor.framework for hardware acceleration on Intel. On Apple Silicon, replace with -accel tcg,tb-size=1024 (software emulation).

Boot an ISO#

qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -accel hvf \
  -m 4096 \
  -smp 4 \
  -cdrom vitruvian.iso \
  -boot d \
  -vga virtio \
  -display cocoa \
  -net nic,model=virtio \
  -net user

VirtualBox#

VirtualBox supports macOS on Intel. It is not supported on Apple Silicon.

  1. Download from virtualbox.org
  2. Create a VM with type Linux, version Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit)
  3. Assign 4 GB RAM, attach the image, set display to VMSVGA with 3D off
  4. Boot

Notes#

  • macOS may show a security warning the first time you run UTM or QEMU — allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
  • Shared folders and clipboard integration are not yet supported in Vitruvian guests.
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