My daughter is starting a college computing course next month and has been told they will be using linux.
She has a fairly recent, last 5yrs or less I think, intel macbook but knows nothing about linux or vm's.
I advised her to install Ubuntu in a VM when she asked about it, she asked how to do this. Initial thought is Virtualbox but I've not used MacOS since well before it became MacOS nor used VirtualBox in many years, have heard of new shiny new things like UTM, Parallels & VMWare.
Is it a reasonable suggestion to just use VirtualBox? Is there a better option?
Bit of a dad moment; "Just install Linux and then I can help you", "But how do I install Linux dad?"
Does she need a GUI VM?
If not, multipass from Canonical is pretty great to spin up quick headless Ubuntu VMs on macOS.
Otherwise, UTM is definitely my second choice.
New to linux, think she needs a gui. I will look into UTM.
I guess also depends what they'll be doing. She could in theory install XQuartz and run GUI apps over SSH but that might become more complicated.
If they're gonna do networking and stuff I'd maybe also get into VirtualBox just because networking in VirtualBox is easier to deal with. UTM is kind of like using libvirt on Linux, it relies on the host to do a bunch of stuff like bridges and firewalls whereas VirtualBox just handles most of it internally and has a nicer GUI for it.
Is it reasonable to advise someone who is new to this stuff on MacOS to just installl Ubuntu on VirtualBox?
VirtualBox is tried and true and a safe bet. Not the fastest, Oracle hasn't particularly been interested in maintaining it, but everyone knows how to use it, and you won't run out of tutorials on how to use it.