Hello, I am trying to create an Arch Linux VM on the current version of Parallels (26.1.1). I realize it is only partially supported. Following the Parallels KB article, one cannot get past step 7 because the UEFI boot does not seem to work, you end up stuck in the BIOS screen. Manually selecting the UEFI Arch Linux entry does not actually boot the image, so you do not even get to the GRUB screen. I have also tried CachyOS (an Arch-based distro) and had the same issue, cannot reach GRUB because I am stuck in the BIOS. I know there is also a KB article for this but that is addressing the reverse problem, which is trying to boot an older MBR .iso with an UEFI BIOS. In any case I did try it out and naturally it did not help. I also tried booting directly from a USB stick with the contents of the iso, the stick boots fine on my PC in UEFI (I used it to install CachyOS so it is known good and known bootable) but it does not boot inside Parallels 26, same error that I describe above, you end up stuck in the BIOS prior to the actual boot. Can anyone else reproduce this issue? In case it makes any difference, here are the exact images I used: archlinux-2025.11.01-x86_64.iso cachyos-desktop-linux-250828.iso
After some searching I found the issue, the problem is that Parallels 26.1.1 cannot boot x86 or x64 EFI executables. If I use an aarch64 (ARM) UEFI image then it boots just fine. I was under the impression that Parallels supported x64 emulation on Apple Silicon hardware but perhaps I was mistaken. This seems like a pretty big omission from the Arch KB that you need to use the ARM version of Arch (the url in the article points to the x64 version), so maybe this is a bug after all.
Hi -- same here. I also tried creating an Arch‑based VM in Parallels 26.1.1 (with x86_64 ISO) and get stuck in the BIOS. Booting either via the ISO or a USB stick fails -- no GRUB, no installer start. I saw another post saying Parallels 26.1.1 currently cannot boot x64 EFI images, only ARM-based ones. Maybe that's the root cause.
i keep forgetting that Parallels existed before Apple Silicon did, and Macs once were running Intel CPUs. So there is no omission, things just changed since the Arch KB was written. Thanks @Sven G for the x64 KB link, this is exactly what I needed. But after reading it I don't really want to try anymore, the result is not going to be usable. Unfortunately Arch on Arm is not quite there yet, I'd better stick with another distro.
It's interesting how often technical problems come down to a rigid adherence to a process that's no longer working... Just like in corporate life, where we see teams stuck in outdated routines, sometimes the biggest hurdle is recognizing that the old behaviour change training courses (i.e., the standard KB articles) are failing to deliver the required behavioural skills for this new environment. ...If you're interested in how this kind of adaptive, problem-solving mindset can be applied to organizational challenges, you might find the work at Sidestream insightful. They focus on driving behavioural change in the workplace through immersive experiences, which is exactly the kind of outside-the-box thinking needed here!
Sadly, only the major distros have .iso installers/live cds also for arm64/aarch64 (while others have only .img or similar installations, to copy to the virtual disk; and often device-specific and less maintained than x64): for example, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu (only the main distro, not the flavours: which anyway can be installed from the command line, afterwards). Let's hope that things will improve, with time...
... Anyway, I tried to emulate the main Arch Linux x64 distribution in Parallels 26, and it's not so slow to be unusable; but, of course, if you install a desktop environment (I tried KDE Plasma), it will be almost good for casual experimenting, but much less for any serious use: https://archlinux.org/download https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE
