Multipass For Mac

For a software developer or sysadmin, using various Linux distros for testing or maintenance is very commonplace, but installing and booting up a full instance of the OS is often not necessary. A virtual machine is usually all you need, but how do you set one up as quickly as possible?

Multipass presents Mac users with a simpler alternative to software like VirtualBox and QEMU. It lets you initialize an Ubuntu VM in seconds, allowing you to quickly test code, and then delete the instance with a simple command.

On macOS, the program uses hyperkit as a backend by default, but if you prefer, you can use VirtualBox for virtualization. All you need to do is run a simple Terminal command after installing Multipass.

If you try to launch an instance with no additional parameters, the current Ubuntu LTS is installed, but you can set up other versions as well. These can all be managed from the Terminal or menu bar, but most functions are only available via command-line.

You can run commands in any available Ubuntu instance directly from Terminal, but you can also open a shell inside the instance and work directly with the Ubuntu command-line.