Now for the fun part: setting up your virtual PC and installing Kali Linux. How to Install Kali Linux On Your M1 or M2 Mac I don’t recommend these, however, because they are built for Intel-based PCs. It’s important to note that Kali Linux does offer prebuilt virtual machine downloads for VMWare, VirtualBox and Qemu. Click your desired option for Installer, whether you want a direct download or a torrent. From the distribution’s web page, click Installer Images > Apple Silicon (ARM64. You’ll also need the Kali Linux installer image. Yes, you can purchase it for $10 on the Mac App Store, but the only difference here is getting automatic updates for UTM itself. Note that I recommend downloading UTM directly from the website. It’s got the robustness we need, and is available free of charge.

For our virtual PC, we’re going to choose UTM. The first thing you need to do to install Kali is gather the required software and installer images.

Getting Ready to Install Kali Linux On Your M1 Mac To run something like Kali Linux, then, we turn to another method: a virtual computer. The team at Asahi Linux has made great strides in bridging the gap, but it’s still got a ways to go. To make a long story short, booting alternate operating systems on newer Mac hardware is still a work in progress. Apple Silicon Macs, from the first M1-based MacBooks to the latest M2 Pro MacBook Pro, not completely differently from PCs. With the transition to Apple Silicon on Mac hardware, the problem is compounded even further. Even on those, though, it began to be a bit troublesome because the T2 Security Chip makes this difficult. On Intel-based Macs, this was quite doable. You might be wondering why you can’t just dual-boot Kali Linux, or replace macOS with it altogether. The Trouble With M1 Macs and Alternate Operating Systems Let’s dive into how you can install Kali Linux on an M1 Mac, or any other Apple Silicon-based computer. The Debian-based Linux distribution has long been run on Macs, but has become more difficult in recent years. It includes a number of tools for testing your network’s vulnerabilities as well as those of your computers and other devices. Kali Linux is a popular choice for penetration testing or ethical hacking.

Kali linux on macos