Live boot Linux from USB

[Shreshth]

I have recently downloaded the latest Tech Preview of VMware fusion as of 20 October 2022. I wanted to Live boot Kali Linux or Parrot Linux from USB on my Mac m1 which of course is not yet natively possible for apple silicon in spite of the official site of these Linux distro providing the arm64 based ISO images.  https://www.kali.org/docs/usb/boot-usb-in-a-vm/ The aforementioned link and the following link https://www.kali.org/blog/vmware-fusion-kali-usb-boot/ guides on how to live boot kali on VMware from USB.

Unfortunately the problem I am facing is that when the virtual machine runs from USB then as long as I'm in the boot menu the Linux OS is accepting keystrokes from my Mac but as soon as I reach the home page then my trackpad or the mouse pointer becomes unresponsive and keyboard also stops working! Therefore I am unable to do anything in the Kali OS and have no option but to shut down the VM.

The same problem persists in case of Parrot Linux as well. Everything is fine as long as I'm in the main boot menu but as soon as I proceed for either the graphical install or the normal install I am unable to use either my trackpad or keyboard to further with the installation process.

I would like to point out that these problems persist only when I am trying to run these Linux distro from USB on VMware but when I directly install the ISO file on VMware then everything works fine. I would request the VMware authorities to please kindly look into this issue and resolve it as soon as possible. 

[Technogeezer]

I've just downloaded the 2022.3 Kali Live environment (kali-linux-2022.3-live-arm64.iso) and have a VM with the following configuration:

• OS type: Other Linux 5.x kernel 64-bit Arm
• Memory: 4096 MB
• 2 processor cores
• ISO booted on virtual CD/DVD drive
• 20GB virtual hard drive
• No 3D acceleration enabled - Kali 2022.3 ISO seems to have a 5.18 kernel which does not contain the VMware submitted virtual graphics driver that enables 3D graphics support for arm64 

Kali Linux Live boots and does not exhibit issues with the mouse pointer or keyboard input

Changing the OS type to Debian 11.x 64-bit ARM does not change behavior.

There have been issues with the 2022.2 installer that necessitated the blacklisting of the vmwgfx driver for the installer ISO to boot. If you're trying to use the 2022.2 Live environment it would not surprise me if similar issues exist with it.

Update: I was able to obtain the 2022.2 Live ISO. I confirmed that this needs the vmwgfx driver to be blacklisted in order to be booted, just like the installer ISO did. However, I did not see the lag in either mouse movement or typing that you did.

My first advice is to try the 2022.3 Live environment with a configuration similar to mine. Don't drag and drop the ISO onto the new VM dialog. Instead create a new custom VM, and use parameters similar to what I described above, configure the Live ISO to a virtual CD/DVD drive, and boot from that.  See if you can reproduce the behavior using this configuration.  .

[Technogeezer]

As an additional test, I just copied the Kali 2022.3 Live ISO to a USB drive, attached the USB drive to my VM, and booted the VM from the USB drive. Startup was a bit slower than virtual CD/DVD (not unexpected), but once booted the mouse movement/tracking and keyboard responsiveness in a Terminal session seemed to be fine.

I'm not on a super-high end Mac either. My hardware is a Mac mini 2020 M1 with 8GB memory. Not sure what your hardware configuration is.

[Technogeezer]

Also, what build of Parrot Linux are you trying? From what I see the only version they have for arm architectures is a Raspberry Pi version. I haven't tried it so I can't weigh in on how it would run. But my concern is that since they tout the Raspberry Pi version as a "lean" distribution, I would wonder if their kernel is compiled with the VMware virtual graphics adapter. If it isn't, you'd be stuck with a generic frame buffer graphics driver with no acceleration.