Find whatever version of Ubuntu you want here and save it to your Downloads folder. In this case: ubuntu-xx.xx.x-desktop-amd64.iso where xx.xx.x is your desired version of Ubuntu, which in my case is 20.04.1. I'm guessing VMs on external hard drives is going to be my MO going forward so I can easily have whatever version of Ubuntu (or Windows) on hand at any time.įirst things first, download the image file of the Linux distribution to install.

So I decided to pick up an extra 1TB external SSD and install my Ubuntu 20.04 on. Today I'm finally upgrading to Ubuntu 20.04, but I don't want to let go of my known-good and stable Ubuntu 18.04 VM.

Personally, I've found that you really get what you pay for with Parallels: it's very stable, setup & integration is easy, and it's well supported. Specifically, I highly recommend Parallels even though there are free options out there. Therefore running Ubuntu in a VM is the ideal solution for me. I personally prefer to do my development in a Linux environment (specifically Ubuntu) but I still like to have access to the Mac OS because I prefer to do my admin stuff on the Mac side (ie - word processing, calendar, email, etc.). I am commonly asked how I setup my FPGA development environment on a Mac OS platform, so every time that I make a major upgrade or overhaul I take the time to document it.

Mac ubuntu virtual machine