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Creating a new virtual machine

  1. Open UTM and click the “+” button to open the VM creation wizard.
  2. Select “Virtualize”.
  3. Select “Linux”.
  4. Pick the amount of RAM and CPU cores you wish to give access to the VM. Press “Continue” to continue.
  5. Click “Browse” and select the Ubuntu Server ISO downloaded from the link above. Press “Continue” to continue.
  6. Specify the maximum amount of drive space to allocate. Press “Continue” to continue.
  7. If you have a directory you want to mount in the VM, you can select it here. Alternatively, you can skip this and select the directory later from the VM window’s toolbar. The shared directory will be available after installing SPICE tools (see below). Press “Continue” to continue.
  8. Press “Save” to create the VM and press the Run button to start the VM.
  9. Go through the Ubuntu installer. At the end, you’ll have the option to “Reboot Now,” but after selecting that option and rebooting, the reboot may fail. (It will hang at a black screen with a blinking cursor.) This is expected!
  10. If the VM did not restart automatically, manually quit the VM, unmount the installer ISO, and start the VM again to boot into your new installation.

Installing Ubuntu Desktop

If you installed Ubuntu Server, then at the end of the installation, you will not have any GUI. To install Ubuntu Desktop, log in and run:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop
$ sudo reboot

Enable clipboard and directory sharing

Follow the instructions in this page.

Troubleshooting

Cannot boot into installer

If you start the VM and are stuck at the EFI screen (BdsDxe: failed to load Boot0001 or UEFI Interactive Shell), try the following in order.

  1. Make sure you have the installer ISO selected. Click the disk icon on the toolbar and check that there is a menu option for CD/DVD (ISO) Image (usb): ubuntu-xxx.iso. If it says CD/DVD (ISO) Image (usb): none, then highlight that menu and choose Change and then select the ISO. If you don’t have any selectable menu option, follow the guide again and make sure you have added a removable drive. Then restart the VM.
  2. Next, try to get into the EFI Shell. If you see UEFI Interactive Shell then you are already in the shell. Otherwise, restart the VM and quickly press the Esc key to enter the shell.
  3. In the EFI shell make sure you see FS0: Alias(s):CD0h0a0a::BLK1: near the top or something similar. If not, then double check your configuration and make sure you have a removable drive configured and the installer ISO mounted. Also check that your ISO is valid.
  4. Type in: fs0:\efi\boot\bootaa64.efi and you should see GRUB. Then select Ubuntu Server to continue with the install.

Networking is unavailable

If the hardware enumeration order changes, your network settings may need to be updated.

  1. Run ip link show and look at the last adapter name. For example, it may be listed as enp0s1.
  2. Edit /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml and copy your configuration for enp0s8 (or whatever the old adapter was named) and paste it immediately after for enp0s1 (or whatever the new adapter is named).
  3. Reboot and you should be able to use networking again.

Black screen or stuck during boot for a long period

On ARM64 it has been reported that doing this may enable two wait services: NetworkManager-wait-online.service and systemd-networkd-wait-online.service that causes a black screen at boot. To verify the fix is needed one can run:

systemctl is-enabled NetworkManager-wait-online.service systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

If you see two lines showing ‘enabled’ instead of one, the one that should be disabled can be done like:

systemctl disable systemd-networkd.service

You can create a serial device in the VM settings to access the command line and run the commands if nothing shows up on screen.