Running ARM64 Debian on MAC OS (13.6) with qemu
# install qemu
brew install qemu
qemu-system-aarch64 --version
mkdir aarm64
cd aarm64
# create image disk
qemu-img create -f qcow2 debian-3607-aarch64.qcow2 32G
# download debian installer
wget http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/debian-installer/arm64/initrd.gz
wget http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/debian-installer/arm64/linux
wget http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye/main/installer-arm64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso
# start and follow Debian installer
qemu-system-aarch64 \
-M virt \
-cpu cortex-a53 \
-m 4G \
-kernel ./linux \
-initrd ./initrd.gz \
-hda debian-3607-aarch64.qcow2 \
-append "console=ttyAMA0" \
-drive file=mini.iso,id=cdrom,if=none,media=cdrom \
-device virtio-scsi-device -device scsi-cd,drive=cdrom \
-nographic -no-reboot
Start a docker shell into guestfish container: docker run -it --rm -v $PWD:/root/$PWD --entrypoint bash curator/guestfish
cd /root/Users/ivanitskiy/dev/aarm64/
virt-ls -a debian-3607-aarch64.qcow2 /boot/
System.map-5.10.0-26-arm64
System.map-5.10.0-27-arm64
config-5.10.0-26-arm64
config-5.10.0-27-arm64
initrd.img
initrd.img-5.10.0-26-arm64
initrd.img-5.10.0-27-arm64
initrd.img.old
lost+found
vmlinuz
vmlinuz-5.10.0-26-arm64
vmlinuz-5.10.0-27-arm64
vmlinuz.old
virt-copy-out -a debian-3607-aarch64.qcow2 /boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-27-arm64 /boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-27-arm64 .now you have your files read to start a VM
qemu-system-aarch64 \
-M virt \
-cpu cortex-a53 \
-m 4G \
-kernel ./vmlinuz-5.10.0-27-arm64 \
-append "root=/dev/vda2 console=ttyAMA0" \
-initrd ./initrd.img-5.10.0-27-arm64 \
-drive if=virtio,file=debian-3607-aarch64.qcow2,format=qcow2,id=hd \
-net user,hostfwd=tcp::10022-:22 -net nic \
-device intel-hda -device hda-duplex -nographic
when started you can from your host use ssh: ssh -Y max@localhost -p 10022
uname -a
Linux debian 5.10.0-27-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.205-2 (2023-12-31) aarch64 GNU/Linux
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 125.00
Features : fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 cpuid
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xd03
CPU revision : 4