Installing Omarchy in a VM on an M* Mac

[swombat]

Dear intrepid adventurer,

If you have decided to do this, please be aware you will encounter many issues along the way and be prepared to get your hands, elbows, shoulders, and even the inside of your eyelids dirty.

But also be aware that it works, with some, but not too many, limitations (main one is: only one monitor). And it is fast. I currently have Omarchy working on my M1 Max MBP and it is gorgeous and was well worth spending the 3h getting it working.

Will you need 3h? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe not. This guide might make it a lot faster. Or not. Who knows? That's part of the fun.

When I started trying to install Omarchy on a VM on my mac I didn't know it was impossible. So I went and did it anyway. And now you too can do the impossible, maybe slightly quicker, with this guide!

PS: If you want to discuss this on Discord, try this thread

Prerequisites

If you're not handy with the command line you probably don't want to do this. This is an advanced, patchy, incomplete guide. You will probably encounter issues that I didn't. Buyer beware.

Also, having a viable AI copilot was priceless in resolving the issues that came up. Issues will come up for you too. Do this with internet access to ChatGPT-4o or equivalent. Or else, accept months of this fate...

Updates

If you figure out more essential tricks, please post them in the comments and I will update the document. Latest update: 2025/08/02.

Getting started

(If in doubt, this chat thread may help you)

I used Parallels because UTM, while free, doesn't support hardware acceleration to an aarch64 VM. And we don't want to use QEMU (slow) or miss out on hardware acceleration (hyprland won't be as nice, I understand). So, Parallels it is. There's a 14 day trial. If you don't manage to decide you want this, within 14 days, then just don't upgrade after the trial.

I gave the VM 4 CPUs, 16 GB of RAM and 64 GB of hdd. So far that works out ok.

Because we're on aarch64, we can't just use the ISO DHH links to. So instead we have to do the much more disturbing and cool thing of downloading Ubuntu and then bootstrapping Aarch from inside, letting it devour its host as it goes.

Save a lot of time by getting the right image first time. You want the Ubuntu desktop image for arm64, because the desktop image allows you to "try Ubuntu" without installing it, which means you start with a clean partition table and don't get stuck trying to umount stuff that's in use, etc. I used ubuntu-25.04-desktop-arm64.iso.

Boot into that, and follow the menu items to "try ubuntu" without installing it.

Then follow these steps:

sudo -i
lsblk # should be /dev/sda with no partitions
cfdisk /dev/sda

Create a new partition table (label type gpt):

• /dev/sda1 – 512 MB, type EFI System
• /dev/sda2 – rest of disk, type Linux filesystem

Format the partitions:

mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

cd /root # This won't work in /mnt
curl -LO http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz
cp ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz /mnt
cd /mnt
tar -xvpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt

mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys

chroot /mnt

passwd                     # set root password
pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

Open a second terminal tab (in Ubuntu) so that it's not inside the chroot and do:

cp --dereference /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf

Then back in the first terminal:

pacman -Syu

Grub will fail to finish.. that's ok-ish. We can work with it. Just check that ls /boot/EFI/GRUB shows grubaa64.efi.

pacman -S arch-install-scripts
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg # Note: this will probably not work yet but do it anyway just in case
genfstab -U / > /etc/fstab

```bash
umount -l /mnt/dev
umount -l /mnt/proc
umount -l /mnt/sys
umount -l /mnt/boot
umount -l /mnt/dev
reboot

When you reboot (you may need to tell parallels to reset the VM), you will probably get a scary screen like this:

Click Ok, open Boot Manager, choose UEFI Shell, and at the prompt type: fs0: and press enter.

Then, ls, and you should be able to cd EFI and then cd GRUB and then just type grubaa64.efi and press enter to boot.

Later, when you are less overwhelmed by the mess, you can fix the bootloader by running:

efibootmgr --create \
  --disk /dev/sda \
  --part 1 \
  --loader '\EFI\GRUB\grubaa64.efi' \
  --label 'ArchLinux' \
  --unicode

You should now see an alarm login! Congrats!

alarm//alarm will work to log in but won't get you far as it doesn't have root access, and root's password isn't, as expected, root (but feel free to try just in case it works for you).

So instead you probably need to restart the VM again, and after selecting the grubaa64.efi, when grub briefly shows, press e to edit the boot entry. At the end of the line that starts with linux add init=/bin/bash. This will drop you into a root shell. From there, just type:

mount -o remount,rw /
passwd

And so you can set a root password.

Are you tired yet? We're not done with step 1 yet!

Reboot again using the bootloader UEFI trick... now you should be able to log in as root or at least log in as alarm/alarm and su -i as root. Add a user for yourself:

pacman -S sudo                  # finally!
useradd -m youruser
passwd youruser
usermod -aG wheel youruser
visudo              # enable %wheel sudo by uncommenting the line

Reboot again, (are you bored of the bootloader trick? You can probably follow the instructions and fix it now!), log in as yourself, and you're ready for step 2, actually installing Omarchy.

Installing Omarchy

I did the regular install, so I did:

wget -qO- https://omarchy.org/install | bash

But that tried to install a bunch of gui things like spotify, that don't work on aarch64. I recommend trying the bare mode omarchy instead:

wget -qO- https://omarchy.org/install-bare | bash

This will take about 30m to run on a beefy M1 Max MBP with nothing else going on.

There will be errors.

They probably won't be a problem. Probably.

After the script finishes... reboot. (did you fix the bootloader issue yet?)

It lives! (kinda)

You may find that the resolution leaves a lot to be desired:

Now I'm not spitting on 1024x768. It was a fine resolution back in the 90s, definitely a huge improvement over 640x480. But we're not in the 90s anymore, even though Omarchy kinda makes me feel like I'm a cool 90s movie hax0r again. Anyway, here's how you can fix the resolution:

First of all... reboot. And press e to get back into GRUB's edit mode. Aren't you loving it yet?

At the end of the linux line, try adding video=Virtual-1:2560x1600@60 or whatever resolution is the full screen res for your screen.

Then boot. If it works...

Give yourself a pat on the back! You've done a bunch of impossible things already!

Since this works, make it permanent. Edit /etc/default/grub and change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet video=Virtual-1:2560x1600@60".

And then:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

More than the basics

Browser

Chromium won't work on aarch64, so get brave:

yay -S brave-bin

Then edit ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf and change chromium in the $browser line to brave.

Ruby/Mise

That required a trick to work:

sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc /usr/local/bin/gcc-14
sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/g++ /usr/local/bin/g++-14
sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/ld /usr/local/bin/ld-14

After this, mise use -g ruby@3.4.4 worked fine.

Apple Keyboard?

Edit hyprland.conf and add this into the keyboard section:

  kb_layout = gb
  kb_variant = mac
  kb_model = apple

You're still going to hit a bunch of interferences between the Mac and the VM... my solution was to install Karabiner on the mac, and remap Caps Lock to F16, and then map that to SUPER on the VM:

yay -S keyd

Then edit/create /etc/keyd/default.conf and set it to:

[ids]
*

[main]
f16 = leftmeta

Followed by sudo systemctl enable --now keyd.

Of course, this broke something else - now my GB keyboard layout wasn't working on the mac. I solved this by updating the karabiner json file on the mac to basically fix the mapping - getting it to actually recognise itself as a gb iso keyboard just wasn't happening. Edit ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json on your mac and update it to:

{
    "profiles": [
        {
            "name": "Default profile",
            "selected": true,
            "simple_modifications": [
                {
                    "from": { "key_code": "caps_lock" },
                    "to": [{ "key_code": "f16" }]
                },
                {
                    "from": { "key_code": "non_us_backslash" },
                    "to": [{ "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde" }]
                },
                {
                    "from": { "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde" },
                    "to": [{ "key_code": "non_us_backslash" }]
                }
            ],
            "virtual_hid_keyboard": { "keyboard_type_v2": "iso" },
            "devices": [
                {
                    "identifiers": {
                        "vendor_id": 1452,
                        "product_id": 835,
                        "is_keyboard": true
                    },
                    "ignore": false,
                    "keyboard_type": "iso"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

[olli757]

What a journey! Thanks for sharing that. I love my macbook pro M1 hardware, so getting it to run via VM would be nice.

[swombat]

Yeah. I love it... and I paid a lot for it :-P And I have a lot invested in the ecosystem around it - the hub, the bluetooth apple keyboard and trackpad with the plexiglass holder, etc.

[olli757]

Indeed. I tried it on a thinkpad T480 but since it's slower and the screen resolution is a lot lower, I obviously won't switch to it as my main machine.
Any idea if this process might work on VMWare Fusion ?

[swombat]

I don't know. ChatGPT suggested that VMWare Fusion was lagging behind a bit. I chose Parallels because it seemed to be the only one to support native virtualisation with graphics acceleration pass-through...

[scottyloveless]

I believe that is outdated, VMware Fusion has hardware acceleration now

[rahulvramesh]

was searching for a how to whole day and randomly came to x.

[swombat]

Hope it helps! If you spot some improvements to make please share them :-)

[ColtonIdle]

spent like 12 hours last weekend trying to get it to work with UTM or VirtualBuddy with non luck. Doesn't parallels cost money? would love to try omarchy without having to pay for a VM.

[swombat]

It does cost like $100/year. But there's a 14 day free trial, so you can give it a go and see if it's worth it.

Honestly if I do switch my dev env over to it it's still a lot cheaper than buying a new computer...

[oerd]

If I remember correctly, VMWare used to have a free for personal use license. Maybe that helps.

[olimorris]

Comment from Reddit on how to download VMWare Fusion. Broadcom do not make it easy.

[cdwilson]

@swombat just curious, did you try installing Arch via Archboot? I'm curious if this could be an option instead of bootstrapping with Ubuntu.

[andrearagao]

my raw notes below

1. download one of the iso's here https://release.archboot.com/aarch64/latest/iso/
2. use ipxe boot - local will not work
3. follow the instructions to install a bare bones version of arch
4. edit pacman.conf => XferCommand = /usr/bin/curl -L -C - -f --connect-timeout 60 --retry 5 --retry-delay 10 -o %o %u - this is to better handle the lack of mirrors for aarch64
5. create a local user and make it part of the group wheel - don't forget to edit /etc/sudoers to enable wheel as administrators
6. once you can boot into arch login as root and pacman -S sudo wget pipewire pipewire-pulse gcc make linux-aarch64-headers dkms base-devel
7. install omarchy bare - omarchy full will not complete
8. install parallel tools
9. optional: install nix to deal with packages not available via arch arm64 repos; nix has a much larger set of packages than arch

[b-d-m-p]

I have installed using archboot in a Parallels VM. It was very straightforward and worked almost right away. I just had to work around pacman aarch64 mirrors issues. I tried UTM and it all installed but hyperland doesn't work well due to the lack of hw acceleration.

Few questions:

• Why doesn't UTM have hardware acceleration if it is a VM for MacOS?
• Can you explain more about the mirror issues? Is it the same as what I am experiencing here? I tried your solution but it doesn't fix it for me. Any suggestions?

[dinvlad]

@b-d-m-p UTM does have GPU acceleration if you choose QEMU instead of Apple Virtualization Framework. However, unfortunately its level of support for OpenGL leaves much to be desired - it's only on version OpenGL 2.1, whereas Hyprland requires 3.0 at a minimum, it seems.

I actually went ahead and installed Omarchy on UTM with aarch64 and GPU accel through QEMU, and Hyprland "worked", but it has graphical glitches like all TUI windows are empty etc. So unfortunately, Parallels (and maybe VMWare, still testing it) remains to be the best option..

[b-d-m-p]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying VMware fusion right now. I'm getting stuck at the step where it starts to use pacman because it doesn't seem to recognize the mirrors, but I've already downloaded and zipped the previous file so the Internet is working. I tried several things to make the mirrors work properly, but I'm not sure what the issue is.

[dinvlad]

I was able to get VMware fusion working, however there were some serious graphical glitches that I didn't bother resolving.. It seems Parallels has the best support for it all, unfortunately. Here's the message on Omarchy Discord where I left a bit more details about the experience: https://discord.com/channels/1390012484194275541/1404714498492858398/1411825251087810680

Btw to get mirrors working, I suggest using Nils' latest installation script from here, if you haven't already.

Also Jond on Discord also just published a detailed guide on making it working in Parallels - including his own fork of it with even more setup in the script. Here's his notes on the use of script and additional mirror setup - perhaps these will be useful: https://github.com/jondkinney/armarchy/blob/vm-testing/full_install_guide.md#step-13-install-omarchy-finally

[b-d-m-p]

I'm doing it with VMWare Fusion. It's free for personal use and has hardware acceleration. I basically got a lot set up but I'm getting stuck at the Boot Manager / UEFI Shell step.

Failing on these:

• pacman -Syu
• pacman -S arch-install-scripts
  Because the download is failing everytime.

I changed the mirrors with nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.
Tried all of these:
Server = http://mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://eu.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://asia.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo

I know the internet is working because I could do:
curl -LO http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz

Any suggestions?

[hackingoff]

* `pacman -S arch-install-scripts`
  Because the download is failing everytime.

...
I know the internet is working because I could do: curl -LO http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz

Any suggestions?

AUR, which hosts the packages, has been intermittently failing and thus compromising the install process. See: Arch Linux Server Status reporting outages for AUR and https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/aur.archlinux.org reporting failure to connect on Aug 12-13, 2025.

I think we just have to wait.

[richie5um]

How have you dealt with passing the 'super' key through to the VM?

[swombat]

I used Karabiner and keyd to remap Caps Lock - search through the guide above and look for "Karabiner".

[b-d-m-p]

About passing through the super key, I think BetterTouchTool would work quite well because it would allow the mappings to be specific to using the VM software so you can continue using normal mappings when you're not using the VM.

[b-d-m-p]

The solution to this issue is this. #452 (comment)

I've tried so many installs I forgot I posted this above issue here first.

[acrognale]

I just tried this guide up to the point where you install Omarchy, but it looks like a commit was added that prevents running the install by default if uname -m doesn't return x86_64: 31ab6b4. I've commented it out - I'll see if it works in the bare install.

[dhh]

The warning is skippable. And I love the idea that we can get Omarchy on Apple hardware. We'll get the entire flow ironed out so it Just Works.

[b-d-m-p]

This must be the what you are talking about but I'm not sure how to comment it out or how to skip it. Little help?

[b-d-m-p]

Figured out how to edit the file in ~/.local/, so was able to get the install started but no getting 404 errors on the sudo pacman -Syu --noconfirm.

[b-d-m-p]

And this seems to be the reason. #452 (reply in thread) Wish I could get a Framework laptop in Japan. 😢

[b-d-m-p]

Here's a guide that will be helpful once that issue is solved. #452 (comment)

[dinvlad]

Hmm I've been trying to follow these instructions for Ubuntu -> ArchLinuxARM install, but looks like /boot/EFI folder is not created at all:

[root@ubuntu /]# ls -al /boot
total 231720
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root      4096 Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root      4096 Aug 26 05:08 ..
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  41249280 Aug 25 16:39 Image
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  15730823 Aug 25 16:39 Image.gz
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root      4096 Aug 26 05:03 dtbs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 171529300 Aug 26 05:09 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   8752064 Aug 26 05:08 initramfs-linux.img

This is right after pacman -Syu. I also noticed that during unpacking of ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz, the EFI directory simply doesn't exist in that archive..

[root@ubuntu /]# tar -tf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz ./boot | awk -F/ '{if (NF<5) print }'
./boot/
./boot/Image
./boot/initramfs-linux.img
./boot/Image.gz
./boot/dtbs/
./boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img

EDIT: Looks like this is what was additionally needed to create /boot/EFI and install GRUB:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr dosfstools
grub-install --target=arm64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

And with that, it was actually not necessary to go through UEFI shell afterwards, as it booted right into Grub!

[bafsr03]

i had the same issue and now it creates the /EFI/GRUB/ grubaa64.efi file as well but when rebooting i get sent back to the same screen.. i can't seem to pass that part.

[smanhoff]

same @bafsr03, did you find any solution?

[senylar]

Try selecting boot manager -> efishell and the promt command. It works for me.

[smanhoff]

I went for https://github.com/malik-na/omarchy-mac, works like a charm!

[RithwikVaidun]

in /grub i added this

BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "Arch Linux ARM" {
linux /Image root=/dev/sda2 rw
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
}

END /etc/grub.d/40_custom

[maver1ck]

I tried this today, UTM + x64 architecture with newest 2.0 ISO.

Process is failing because lack of WiFI (which is normal for VM). There is no option to continue even if internet is connected.

[b-d-m-p]

Formatted the drive, but it's still giving this error. I saw someone formatting the drive in arch for omarchy, but I can't remember where I saw it.

[b-d-m-p]

I used the Omarchy ISO and did emulate in UTM and got super far. Everything seemed to go really well but somewhere at the end it kind of loops. And doesn't finish so I'm not sure what happened or how to fix it. This is some of the stuff that looks problematic, but I am not sure which thing it is that is causing it.

[brasilikum]

@b-d-m-p you just need to find the exact moment where it reboots, stop it, remove the install iso.

The issue is that it continues to boot into the iso, so when you remove it, it boots Omarchy.

It works, tho the speed is crawling due to the x64 on an M4 mac

[b-d-m-p]

Ah, I see. do you know what that point is? Would this be more performant with another piece of software like parallels or VMware?

[b-d-m-p]

Clarifying for others. If you're using Omarchy as a VM on Mac Silicon, you have to install an arm64 version of Arch, but Omarchy currently can not be installed due to #452 (reply in thread)

Here's a guide that will be helpful once that issue is solved.
#452 (comment)

[b-d-m-p]

Got an error on this step

pacman -Syu

This is the error.

[root@ubuntu /]# pacman -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core.db failed to download
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from mirror.archlinuxarm.org : Could not resolve host: mirror.archlinuxarm.org
warning: too many errors from mirror.archlinuxarm.org, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed to synchronize all databases (invalid url for server)

The reason was resolv.conf has a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf. The issue is that this symlink points to a systemd-resolved file that doesn't exist in the chroot.

This is how to fix it.

# Remove the broken symlink
rm /etc/resolv.conf

# Create a proper resolv.conf file
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 8.8.4.4" >> /etc/resolv.conf

Then test the DNS resolution.

ping -c 3 mirror.archlinuxarm.org

Now you can

pacman -Syu

Hope it helps.

[guilbep]

That was necessary :p thanks @b-d-m-p

[camm344]

Remember to run this in the chroot 😭

[0xSMW]

FYI future people, the bare url is 404

[lbonvarl]

The sequence to enable SDDM worked well. I have done a custom SDDM theme easily matching OMARCHY aesthetics from: https://github.com/siddrs/tokyo-night-sddm available in AUR with
yay -S sddm-theme-tokyo-night-git

See modified theme.conf attached with centered form Cascaydia Mono font, just need to add the relevant backgrounds in /Backgrounds: theme.conf.txt

yay -S sddm
sudo systemctl enable sddm
sudo systemctl disable omarchy-seamless-login
# optional but recommended:
$ sudo reboot

[malikons]

Any reason why you simply did not use the Arch Linux virtual machine:
https://pkgbuild.com/~tpowa/parallels

This is linked in Arch's documentation as an alternative to installing Arch from scratch on Apple Silicon. I am now stuck at installing Omarchy, hence I landed on this thread, but the PVM works well for Parallels Desktop.

[phren0logy]

Seems that the image is about 3y old. I don't know enough to say if this is an issue, but it did give me pause.

[b-d-m-p]

Great guide to Omarchy for arm64 on VMware Fusion. https://tomassrnka.com/2025/09/omarchy-on-apple-silicon-vmware-fusion/
Unfortunately, it won't work at the moment due to this issue #452 (reply in thread)

[ylluminate]

It would be worth noting that Parallels is willing to accept requests to make Omarchy work well on macOS and seems to be interested in potentially supporting Wayland. This is going to require the community submitting support tickets and interacting with their support to collect data and to work through this. They may also be willing to open up the Parallels Tools as open source with enough pressure so that we can start having superior experiences in more exotic situations like this.

It's going to take some interaction and support tickets though - so be prepared to roll up your sleeves. I'm in the process right now of trying to help them understand how to properly install it, but others' input will surely help.

Also note that you'll need to have patience as you work through the mundaneness of "First Line team" support and get to their "Second Level team." It could take a few days after you start your interactions to get to folks who will try to work more seriously with you... So better to start sooner than later.

[lbonvarl]

There was good instructions from this message on omarchy-on-other discord channel for Parallels 20 (current) on M1: https://discord.com/channels/1390012484194275541/1404714498492858398/1414683694119256176

Use this guide: https://github.com/jondkinney/armarchy/blob/vm-testing/full_install_guide.md and if you want, you can skip right to the actual omarchy install by using this Parallels image https://jond.fromsmash.com/Arch-On-Parallels which is a snapshot from the point in time just prior to installing omarchy from that guide.

Before running the installer though you'll need a local user as the image mentioned above only has the root user. So add your own user with the following.

# Create a new user with home directory
useradd -m youruser    # Replace 'youruser' with your desired username

# Set password for the new user
passwd youruser

# Add user to the wheel group (for sudo access)
usermod -aG wheel youruser

before proceeding with the instructions, update all packages with
pacman -Syu

Then login as your user and run the installer as that user NOT root.

[ylluminate]

I'll try to pass these on to Parallels engineers once I can reproduce. Unfortunately @lbonvarl the binary Arch on Parallels.pvmp will not load on my system (Parallels 26.0.1) with a consistent:

"Arch on Parallels" cannot be saved.
You do not have the permission to write to the folder /Users/u/Parallels/Arch on Parallels.pvmp.

And I have done everything that can be done to resolve and isolate this (permissions settings, xattribs, system file access for Parallels, ad infinitum ad nauseam), so it appears that there's some kind of a bug I'm hitting. I don't know if I feel like escalating this bug itself with Parallels. I guess I'll just walk through the actual manual install again like I did with Omarchy 1.x and try to put together my own complete walkthrough for them in the email exchange.

[bafsr03]

i think the snapshot is not avaliable anymore, would you mind reuploading it ?

[chrishayen]

@swombat In Parallels:

prlctl create omarchy -d linux --cpu-type x86
prlctl set omarchy --device-set cdrom0 --image /Users/chris/Downloads/omarchy-3.0.1.iso --connect
prlctl start omarchy

[chrishayen]

I guess --cpu-type isn't documented? I think they're trying to hide the x86 option because it's butt slow. They removed the bios dropdown too. The feature still works, though.

I found it here https://kb.parallels.com/130217/

[magiconair]

They also only support a single CPU

[maver1ck]

This guide works for me on UTM
https://deepakness.com/blog/omarchy-on-mac-via-utm/

However result is unusable slow.

[pritamkumarravi]

How do I install on VMware fusion 😅

[magiconair]

I've worked through the different steps here and this is my compiled version of installing Arch ARM in a Parallels VM on Apple Silicon:

# create a file system
mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

# mount the partitions
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

# download arch linux
cd /root
curl -LO http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz
tar -xvpf ArchLinuxARM-aarch64-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt

# bind mount required paths
mount --bind /dev  /mnt/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /sys  /mnt/sys

# chroot into arch
chroot /mnt

# set a root password
passwd

# set a DNS server
rm /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 1.1.1.1" > /etc/resolv.conf

# init pacman
pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

# update the pacakges
pacman -Syu

# install scripts and boot loader
pacman -S arch-install-scripts grub efibootmgr dosfstools

# install the bootloader 
# '--removable' prevents the "efibootmgr failed to register the boot entry" error
grub-install --target=arm64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB --removable

# APPEND the config an Omarchy entry to grub
cat >> /etc/grub.d/40_custom <<EOF
menuentry "Omarchy" {
	set root=(hd0,gpt1)
	linux /Image.gz root=/dev/sda2
	initrd /initramfs-linux.img
}
EOF

# Make Omarchy the default boot option
sed -i -e 's/^GRUB_DEFAULT=.*/GRUB_DEFAULT=1/' /etc/default/grub

# Create the grub config file
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

# Update /etc/fstab for root fs
# There is probably a tool for this. I've used btrfs, you may have ext4.
echo "/dev/sda2 / btrfs defaults" >> /etc/fstab

# exit the chroot
exit

# unmount bind mounts
umount -l /mnt/{dev,proc,sys,boot}

# reboot into Arch
reboot

[magiconair]

Snapshots come in handy when working with this.

[magiconair]

Here are my steps in trying to install Omarchy from the current aarch64 support branch #1897. Thank you @jondkinney

# mount the Parallels Tools ISO (Actions -> Install Parallels Tools ...)

# Remount / read-write if you forgot to add an entry to /etc/fstab
mount -o remount,rw /

# install some needed tools upfront
pacman -S sudo wget

# install Omarchy from https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pull/1897
# this can take a while...
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jondkinney/armarchy/amarchy-3-x/boot.sh | OMARCHY_REPO=jondkinney/armarchy OMARCHY_REF=amarchy-3-x bash

[magiconair]

My installation is stuck at installing the gtk-engine-murrine. See #1897 (comment)

[magiconair]

I was able to install it with the #1897 branch. Next roadblock is logging in since ENTER does not work.

[patroza]

Instructions were great, apart from Omarchy expecting btrfs, not ext4, so format with btrfs.
also you need grub-btrfs instead of grub, otherwise grub can't read btrfs.
other than that I needed to manually install the parallels tools, as the installer thinks 3mb is too small (expects >50),
and I had to set SKIP_SIGNAL_DESKTOP_BETA=true, now running smoothly, even with howdy camera auth for sudo/1pw/hyprlock.

#1897 (comment)

[discepoli]

I tried installing and am running into an error saying that multilib.db cannot be retrieved from geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com in the preflight pacman.sh script. anyone know how to fix this?

[RithwikVaidun]

Any fix you found?

[texastoland]

Tried #452 (reply in thread)?

[RithwikVaidun]

yes, unfortunately I have an m3 pro which is not supported

[jondkinney]

FYI, the current best way to get the latest Omarchy 3.x running in a VM is to use my fork with details in the PR description (it's been mentioned a few times here by others, but I figured I'd chime in, too).

This is the fork that is being worked on for integrating into the mainline of Omarchy and will eventually provide official ARM support. #1897

Details in the description, current images for VMware and Parallels available for download and easy install from bash command history. Just login and press the up arrow then enter!

[sszakal]

Can someone just share the parallels VM ? So that we don’t have to go through this individually ? Would be great to have an official VM image

[hamstu]

Yeah, came here searching for that! Doesn't feel like it's worth the effort with all the complexity here right now.

[jondkinney]

They're located in here #1897 and I try to keep them up to date. Fully configured VMs that you just have to log in to, press "up" to pull up the last history entry, and then go. Only thing that is a little tricky is sometimes the Parallels tools don't want to mount and you may have to remove and re-add the CD/DVD rom to get it to be able to mount properly when choosing "Install Parallels Tools" from the menu. But that's minor and I've always gotten past it by doing that and/or sometimes changing the SATA port for the drive.

From the PR description....

On a VM
Get the parallels or vmware images with wget & sudo installed (or install Arch on your own VM w/ the necessary deps). Both of these downloads are good through May 9th 2026. If you need a new one after that, ping me and I can try to help.

Once your VM is booted, if you're using Parallels, choose "Install Parallels Tools" from the "Action" menu. If you're using VMware you do not have to manually initiate any VMware Tools installation, it's fully automated.

Finally after logging into the VM as root execute the wget command below 👇 Protip: that wget url should be in the bash history of both VMs if you press the up arrow on the keyboard a few times.

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jondkinney/armarchy/amarchy-3-x/boot.sh | OMARCHY_REPO=jondkinney/armarchy OMARCHY_REF=amarchy-3-x bash

If you want to type in a shorter url, this shortlink will expand to the above: curl -fsSL hdwy.link/armarchy-3-x | bash you can inspect it by omitting the | bash first if you like, which will just print the text it's going to pipe to bash.

[anarchysaiko]

Your vm link has been expired. I need a new vmware link.

[eciuca]

Hi, I'd also like to download an arm version for Apple Silicon. @jondkinney could you provide new links ? Or how can we build ourselves ?

[jondkinney]

All my VM image contains is a base install from archboot.com so you can definitely run through that yourself if you want. https://release.archboot.com/aarch64/ pick the latest dated iso https://release.archboot.com/aarch64/latest/iso/ and I usually download the middle sized one. Only difference is how many of the packages are included in the iso download versus what the installer will need to download to fully install the system. That said, this is a parallels image of that base install that should work for the next few weeks https://jond.fromsmash.com/jHpi.6ii6s-ft

[lewandowski96]

Tried this today. Sadly ran it to errors and did not work.

Finally got it to work. Here is what worked for me in case if anybody needs it. Apologies if I miss anything I am just going off from what I remember.

My specs

2021 M1 Pro MBP running Squoia
Parallels Desktop 26.3.1

1. Downloaded the Arch Linux ARM ISO from here -> https://release.archboot.eu/aarch64/latest/iso/
2. Created a VM with 2 processors, 8 GB RAM and 64 GB storage.
3. Installed Arch Linux using the provided installer. Chose btrfs for disk because I saw that Omarchy needs this. When choosing a bootloader I chose GRUB first but it errored out saying that I need to chroot and stuff. So I chose the other one (sorry can't remember the name) and it successfully installed.
4. Rebooted the VM and logged in as root. now we are in Arch ARM.
5. Updated the system by running pacman -Syu
6. Installed some essentials pacman -S --needed sudo git base-devel chromium
7. Created a user by running useradd -m -G wheel <username> and passwd <username>
8. Opened up sudoers file by running EDITOR=nano visudo and un commented %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
9. Switched to the new user by running su - <username>

Now we move on to install Omarchy. Referred this because I previously installed this bare metal using Asahi Linux.

1. Need to install Yay first. (not going to include how here cuz simple google search will do)
2. Clone the installer files by running git clone https://codeberg.org/malik-na/omarchy-mac.git ~/.local/share/omarchy
3. Navigate to the folder -> cd ~/.local/share/omarchy
4. Run bash install.sh

Now it will prompt for a warning stating something about Asahi not being configured. Select proceed anyways. We will fix that later.

Now wait. It took more than 30 minutes for me. (I guess I have shitty internet maybe :D) I noticed that something xdg related failed to install but...

It will finish up and select reboot.

Login. Now hopefully you should see the beautiful Tokyo Night desktop. If not then I am really sorry but you should be able to fix it by some googling.

Not you will notice that if you hit Command + Enter (to launch the terminal) or even clicking on the waybar speaker icon it will show a notification stating xdg-terminal-exec command not found. Well, simple right? Let's install that.

I opened up a terminal by clicking on the Menu and ran sudo pacman -S xdg-terminal-exec. Now you will see some error related to Asahi Alarm. That's what installer warned us before. To fix this we need to remove the Asahi entries from the pacman configs.

Open up the /etc/pacman.conf (remember to use sudo) file and uncomment the line where it refers to Asahi. Save it and now pacman should work fine.

Do a sudo pacman -Sy first and then use AUR to install the xdg-terminal-exec. cuz it's not in pacman.

Then install Parallels Tools by referring this article -> https://kb.parallels.com/en/129740

That's it. You should be good!

Again, I was not documenting this as I went through and noting this down now as I remember how I did it. Do let me know if you encounter any issues. That will definitely jog my memory and I should be able to help.

Hope this helps someone. Adios! 👋