Apple Silicon Mac (UTM) Guide

Running NextBSD on an M-series Mac using UTM, from download through to an optional Gershwin desktop. For QEMU on other platforms, see Getting Started.

Download the image

Grab the latest ARM64 ISO image from the continuous release.

Create the VM

• Click + to open the VM creation wizard

• Click Virtualize on the first screen named Start

• Click Linux under Preconfigured

• Leave the default settings and click Continue on the Hardware screen

• On the virtualization screen also leave the default settings but click Browse to choose the ISO, select the ISO, and click continue

• On the storage screen leave the default settings and click Continue

• On the Shared Directory screen leave the default settings and click Continue

• Name the VM NextBSD or whatever you like and click Save

Optionally enable bridged mode (required for ssh)

• Right click the new VM

• Click edit and select Network

• On the Network screen select Bridged (Advanced) for network mode

  • For wifi Automatic may not work and an adapter may need to be chosen for bridged interface on this screen!

Installing NextBSD

• Login as root (no password) after booting the VM and type the following

nextbsd-installer

• Click enter on the first screen and select the disk normally vtbd0 and press enter

• Press right arrow to select Shut Down and press enter on the final screen

• After the VM is powered down click CD/DVD and click clear to eject the media used for the install

Optionally installing Gershwin Desktop

After installation login as root locally via the UTM VM console or use this command to ssh remotely from your Mac

ssh root@virt-10-0

In the case of multiple NextBSD VM's you can confirm the hostname by typing hostname as root from the UTM VM console.

After logging in the following process will install the bleeding edge version of Gershwin Desktop from developer branches which is more useful for testing resolution change functionality and other new items.

pkg update
pkg install -y xlibre git
git clone -b dev https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-developer.git /Developer
/Developer/Library/Scripts/bootstrap.sh
BRANCH=dev /Developer/Library/Scripts/checkout.sh
cd /Developer && make install
. /System/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
dscli init
cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/
REPO=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop/main
BASE=$REPO/targets/nextbsd/overlays/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
fetch $BASE/org.gnustep.gdomap.plist
fetch $BASE/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist
fetch $BASE/io.github.gershwin-desktop.dshelper.plist
fetch $BASE/io.github.gershwin-desktop.loginwindow.plist
reboot

After the reboot is complete you can login as admin with no password. Passwords can be set and users can be managed with sudo dscli.

Where next

• Command Reference — the Darwin-derived commands worth trying first
• Service Management with launchd — there is no rc.conf here
• Installing Packages — pointing pkg at the NextBSD repository