Details

Written by: Charles Thompson (Webmaster)

Category: Enthusiasm Computing (OS & Software, Hardware) 🪛🤯

Published: 07 September 2024

Created: 07 September 2024

Last Updated: 15 October 2024

Hits: 222

• Install Linux
• Macintosh
• MacOS
• Virtualization
• Virtualbox
• Free software
• FOSS
• Software
• X Windows
• Peppermint
• Linux

Write a comment

MacOS Monterey Virtualization: the Linux OS 📀👇

This is my guide on how to begin with your first strike and catch-easy at operating systems.  Now MacOS has things like Parallels which allow Microsoft Windows to boot and run software/games specific to Microsoft like FFXI or Ultima Online. No worry though, because today we're going to show you how to run a favorite disk install of an OS called "PeppermintOS". We are doing this together from the comfort of your sturdy Macintosh computer system.  Here you can see we've downloaded the Virtualbox application and then finished its installation.

What we need from here is the image of PeppermintOS Mini network boot image (*.ISO) file. Attempts with PeppermintOS Mini ISO were failure in MacOS 12.7.6 Virtualbox. Let's go ahead and visit the homepage of PeppermintOS. The download page is Download and Install – PeppermintOS. After that let's go ahead and download the "PeppermintOS Flagship" version for your architecture. For older computers 32-bit with only max 4 gigabytes RAM (computer memory), or newer computers with 64-bit which supports over 4 gigabytes RAM.

Select where it says "SourceForge" and wait for your download to begin.

After the download is done verify the checksum per the instructions if you wish. You'll open Virtualbox next to find the following after clicking the "New" button:
1. Make a label for your new OS expedition under "Name", for this purpose I used "Peppermint Debian 64 -bit"
2. Folder, leave the same as-is. 
3. ISO Image <not selected> - go ahead and click the left of the input box, then select your PeppermintOS download file ("PeppermintOS-Debian-64.iso") as "Other". 

After selecting the downloaded PeppermintOS .ISO image file and choosing "Debian Linux 64-bit" the Virtualbox software will automatically close off the rest of the configuration prompt. Select "Skip Unattended Installation", putting a checkmark:

After clicking "Next" it brings you to a specific menu involving the emulated system's consideration of resources in the context of local system hardware resources. Consider what you are willing to assign to your PeppermintOS. This setup works with any downloaded Linux-related *.ISO file download. Then you have it, my example:



Clicking "Next" opens the following prompt about setting up storage space for the new operating system profile. It gives the flexibility to store the PeppermintOS local disk as a disk object file (*.vdi) in your operating system.

Click the radio button marked "Create a Virtual Hard Disk Now". Use the slider to give a reasonable amount of disk space. The optional "Pre-allocate Full Size" being checked means that it you want a full disk image on your computer disk drive, which makes the virtual system perform faster. You'll want to give it at least 10 gigabytes but 32 gigabytes is preferred. Again, this is for an image that occupies your physical disk drive.

There is a performance boost to using pre-allocated size. You can see I already have PeppermintOS previously installed on the .vdi file.  The .vdi files are what is utilized by our specified computer operating system. They'll hold the fully installed version after PeppermintOS setup finishes.

Guest OS Summary
If you are comfortable with the configuration, click "Finish" to accept.

Congratulations, you are ready ✅

Let's boot and install Linux in MacOS Monterey or higher. Double-click your new labeled operating system profile or use the "Start" button with it selected.


Proceeding with Setup

You'll enter the choice of boot at the custom bootloader

Select the first choice ⤵️

This live setup disk now displays the OS preview

Select the top-left icon labeled "Install Pepp.."

This begins the Peppermint Installer process through GUI ⤵️

You'll be able to choose your language, time zone, and keyboard layout. When the setup process arrives at "Partitions" this is what will determine your disk setup. If you want to use virtual memory filesystem for better performance (Linux swap space, recommended) select a swap option, for this I choose ext4 with "Hibernate" allowed. You can choose whatever benefits your use case the best. You can also choose to have the disk encrypted. Formatting the entire disk is recommended.


You can opt to automatically partition the disks or do it manually. Let's do automatic for ease of use.

Set up a User

Peppermint Installer then asks for you to input for the new system's primary user account. This is the account you'll log in to the X display manager with and Peppermint allows for this user sudo(1) access in the finalized installation. 

Then the next step.

Ready for Disks, Timezone, Hostname, User access/Password, Keyboard
Proceed to install your basic Debian PeppermintOS system 🤙🏻

Confirm that all is ready then select "Install".

All Done
When done proceed to reboot the system as directed.

Final Result
You can see that the system is now booted and has an active desktop.