Adding blog on multipass

blog/content/blogs/running-ubuntu-on-a-mac/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+---
+author: "Jim Bennett"
+categories: ["Technology", "apple", "mac", "Apple Silicon", "M1", "VM", "Virtual machine", "ubuntu"]
+date: 2023-01-24
+description: ""
+draft: false
+images:
+  - /blogs/running-ubuntu-on-a-mac/banner.jpg
+featured_image: banner.jpg
+slug: "running-ubuntu-on-a-mac"
+tags: ["Technology", "apple", "mac", "Apple Silicon", "M1", "VM", "Virtual machine", "ubuntu"]
+title: "Run an Ubuntu VM on your Mac with a single command"
+---
+
+I recently needed to run Linux so I could test out what Python version was installed, and how to upgrade it for some documentation I'm creating.
+
+I don't have a spare machine to set up as a Linux box, and didn't want to use a Raspberry Pi, I wanted a clean Ubuntu install.
+
+My original thought was to use VMWare Fusion Player, and spin up a VM, but things got a bit tricky - I installed it, created a new Ubuntu VM, and it just didn't work. It didn't have any install media, and just failed to boot. I'm not sure why, I just assumed 'Create an Ubuntu VM' would just work...
+
+So digging for an ISO, I cam across another method to install - [Multipass from Canonical](https://multipass.run). No, this isn't cheap movie tickets, instead its a free way to manage VMs using the hypervisor built into your OS - Hyper-V on Windows, QEMU and HyperKit on macOS and LXD on Linux.
+
+## Installing Multipass
+
+Multipass was easy to install on my Mac - it can be installed via homebrew:
+
+```bash
+brew install --cask multipass
+```
+
+```output
+==> Downloading https://github.com/canonical/multipass/releases/download/v1.11.0
+==> Downloading from https://objects.githubusercontent.com/github-production-rel
+######################################################################## 100.0%
+==> Installing Cask multipass
+==> Running installer for multipass; your password may be necessary.
+Package installers may write to any location; options such as `--appdir` are ignored.
+Password:
+installer: Package name is multipass
+installer: Installing at base path /
+installer: The install was successful.
+🍺  multipass was successfully installed!
+```
+
+I had to enter my password (which makes sense as this installs some OS level stuff), but in a few seconds it was installed.
+
+## Creating a VM
+
+Creating a new VM is easy - just one command to create and launch it:
+
+```bash
+multipass launch
+```
+
+This takes a loooooooong time the first time as it needs to download an image and create the new VM. Once the VM is created it will launched given a two-word name.
+
+```output
+➜  ~ multipass launch
+Launched: disarming-woodcock  
+```
+
+You can get more info on the VM using the `info` command with the instance name:
+
+```bash
+➜  ~ multipass info disarming-woodcock
+```
+
+```output 
+Name:           disarming-woodcock
+State:          Running
+IPv4:           192.168.64.2
+Release:        Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS
+Image hash:     8593ce1c6bbd (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
+CPU(s):         1
+Load:           0.27 0.17 0.07
+Disk usage:     1.4GiB out of 4.7GiB
+Memory usage:   149.2MiB out of 962.7MiB
+Mounts:         --
+```
+
+Once the VM is running, you can log in to it using the `shell` command with the instance name:
+
+```bash
+multipass shell disarming-woodcock
+```
+
+Done! I now have an Ubuntu VM ready to play with.