VMware Fusion - Ubuntu 18.04 VM not starting

[Bluebirdmath]

Hello all, 

I am a brand-new VM Fusion user.  I registered today for a free, personal VMware Fusion 13 Player key.  I downloaded and performed what I thought was a successful installation.  However, I tried to open a pre-built virtual machine (Ubuntu 18.04) for a self-study class that I'm taking and all I see is a black screen with a white arrow: 

I have tried clicking the arrow and also going Virtual Machine > Start Up, but nothing seems to happen either way.  I've tried: restarting my Mac, re-installing VMware 13 Player, and poking around in the VMware Fusion docs but I haven't been able to solve the problem yet.  Can anyone help? 

My MacOS is Ventura 13.2.1. 

Thanks!

[ColoradoMarmot · Accepted solution]

Are you on an intel mac or an ARM mac?  You'll need to make sure that the pre-built vm is for the right type of machine (i.e. you can't run an intel VM on an ARM mac).

[Bluebirdmath]

Thanks for the tip!  I'm on a Mac with an Apple M1 chip -> ARM.  

I checked the name of the pre-built VM and saw that it contains: "ubuntu-18.04-amd64.vmx" -> sounds like it is AMD? 

Does that mean I am out of luck? 😉 Since the instructor is the creator of the VM, maybe it would be possible for him to create an alternate version that runs on ARM?  (I don't think most others are using a Mac, but I was hoping to be able to do it.) Are there any other options that I may have missed?

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

You are correct that a VM that advertises itself as "amd64" is built for an x86_64 (Intel/AMD) CPu. It won't run under Fusion virtualization on an M1 Mac. Fusion only runs operating systems built for the underlying CPU chipset - and for M1/2/3 Mac that means it has to be an operating system that's built to run on ARM CPUs (arm64/aarch64).

Your instructor would have to create a Ubuntu VM on Fusion on an Apple Silicon Mac (not an Intel Mac). The VM would have to be 20.04.5 or later -  preferably 22.04.3 or 23.10.

18.04 for ARM CPUs doesn't run on Fusion - I've tested it and nothing I've done to date has been able to get it to run. It uses an older Linux kernel that has too many bugs and incompatibilities with the virtual hardware that prevent it from running on Fusion. Newer versions have newer kernels that run fine. 

The only option I can think of is to use the QEMU utility qemu-img to convert that VMware virtual disk file to a qcow2 format. Then use UTM to run that VM with an emulated Intel CPU. (Performance won't be great, but it probably will run).

Another thought: Work with the instructor to find out what has been installed in the VM, and then build your own Ubuntu ARM VM to match the specs of the pre-built one. Of course that assumes that everything the instructor has installed is available for use on ARM Linux distros. And assumes that there's nothing specific about any tools that are available in Ubuntu 18.04.

Good luck with your studies.

[Bluebirdmath]

Thank you both @Technogeezer and @ColoradoMarmot for the insights. 

I went the route of finding an older host machine.  I had an Intel-based MacBook Pro laptop (mid 2012 version), so I downloaded VMware Fusion v 11.5.7 on it.  That version was able to run my instructor's ubuntu-18.04-amd64.vmx (hooray!)