Yes, I know there are plenty of other distros out there to play with and that some are better than others, but for the purpose of this post I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for readers to just experiment. Now it's time to get the Linux distro that I used the last time - Ubuntu. The instructions are right on the box! Double-click the VirtualBox.pkg icon, respond to the various prompts using the default values, and VirtualBox is installed in the Applications folder.

Double-click it to mount the installer image and this Finder window appears: Download VirtualBox 4.2.16 for OS X Hosts here, and save it to a convenient spot on your Mac.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy.Īt this point you have a file with a name like 'VirtualBox-4.2.16-86992-OSX.dmg' either in the Downloads folder or on the desktop. Rather than use either VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop, we're using the free Oracle VM VirtualBox. The first thing to do is get the Virtual Machine environment installed. Whatever the reason, it's easy to do and you can put it on your resumé. Why would you want to run Linux on your Mac, which features a Unix-based operating system in itself? Well, you may need to run Linux applications for your job as a system admin, or perhaps there's some specific app that some kind soul has written to run on a variety of Linux distributions but hasn't been ported to OS X yet. This post is an update to the original, with all-new instructions but still using the same framework - Oracle VM VirtualBox, which is an open source virtualization environment, and Ubuntu Linux. Entitled ' How to set up Ubuntu Linux on a Mac - It's Easy and Free,' the post described in full detail how those interested in learning more about one specific Linux distro could install Ubuntu in a virtual machine on their device. Back about this time of year in 2009, I wrote a post that's remained a venerable favorite.

How to run linux on mac