Multipass lets you orchestrate virtual instances of Ubuntu

Jan 22, 2019 14:48 GMT  ·  By

Canonical announced today the availability of its Multipass orchestration tool for virtual instances of Ubuntu Linux for the Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Multipass is an open-source command-line utility that lets users orchestrate the creation, management, and maintenance of virtual machines of Ubuntu Linux for simplifying the development of applications. It is available on Linux and macOS operating systems, and, as of today, it's also available for the Windows platform.

"Following our macOS release, this time the team is really happy to announce another platform Multipass will speed your workflow on, Windows" said Canonical's Michał Sawicz. "We’re looking forward to your feedback! The code that’s open-source is available on GitHub and that’s where you can submit bugs or feature requests as well."

Here's how to harness the full power of Ubuntu on Windows with Multipass

Multipass for Windows is available for download from GitHub. To install it, first make sure your network connection is marked as Private, then run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. After installation, you can harness the full power of Ubuntu by running the "multipass launch" command in Command Prompt or PowerShell.

Once you execute the command above to launch the tool, Multipass will automatically download the latest Ubuntu LTS image, which will be cached for future use, and give your virtual instance a fun name. To open a shell inside the virtual instance and harness the full power of Ubuntu, you must run the "multipass shell < instance-name >" command.

To use Multipass on your Windows computer, you will need to run Windows 10 Update 1803 or a later version. Also, please note that Multipass only works with Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise editions as the Windows 10 Home editions aren't supported due to the limitations implemented by Microsoft.