It also permits users to tie commands within a VM to commands on the host OS via the new Alias functionality.VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Multipass, however, dispenses with all the GUI frippery in favour of a command line interface. Then again, the Arm64 version of Ubuntu 20.04 in Parallels Desktop 17 was also impressively snappy once installed. We took version 1.8 for a spin on an 8GB M1 Mac Mini and can confirm Canonical's claims regarding the speed to get started.
The inevitable "Would you like to help Multipass developers by sending anonymous usage data?" is also present and correct upon launch. You will also find the inevitable minikube Kubernetes distribution (a single node Kubernetes cluster in a VM).Īlso in the list is the Anbox Cloud appliance, which permits the running of Android apps in Multipass, according to Canonical.
A multipass find showed a pair of Ubuntu LTS images available, as well the more cutting edge 21.04 and 21.10. With support for cloud-init metadata, simulating a cloud deployment on one's M1 Macbook is a straightforward process. Multipass is free, though, which will tempt many, and getting to an Ubuntu (naturally) command prompt took us a matter of seconds.
The future: Windows streaming through notched Apple screens.Desktop 17 for Mac: In a Parallels universe with Windows 11 on M1 silicon.Linux 5.16 to bring mainline support to Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module – and the nifty devices built around it.Want to spin up Ubuntu VMs from Windows 10's command line, eh? We'll need to see a Multipass.So that's at least one alternative option. The Arm64 build of Ubuntu 20.04 took around five minutes to install from scratch. We fired up Parallels Desktop 17, which offered a choice of Linux distribution.