Velo Workspaces
Seven distributions, seven different jobs
| Distro | Best for | In Velo Workspaces 1.2 | Know before you start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.04, 24.04 | The biggest package and tutorial ecosystem | Cloud image; automatic install (Server and Desktop) | Cloned Ubuntu Server VMs can lose their network to a Netplan MAC match |
| Debian 13, 12 | Stability: packages change less often, on purpose | Cloud image; installer by hand | The installer isn't automated yet; the cloud image is the hands-free route |
| Fedora 44 | The newest kernel and packages | Cloud image; automatic install (Server, Everything); Workstation by hand | SELinux is enforcing by default |
| Rocky Linux 10, 9 | Testing against RHEL before production | Cloud image; automatic install | Older packages by design, supported for about ten years |
| Kali Linux | A security testing lab | Installer by hand | NAT networking: the guest doesn't sit on your LAN |
| NixOS 26.05, 25.05 | A system described in one version-controlled file | Installer by hand | Anything installed outside configuration.nix disappears on rebuild |
| Arch | Full control over exactly what's installed | Not in the catalog; bring a community ISO | No official arm64 build; what runs is Arch Linux ARM |
Pick by what you're doing
- You're not sure yet, or you're following a tutorial written for "Linux". Ubuntu. The largest user base gives you the best odds that someone has already solved whatever you're about to hit, and the cloud image is running in about a minute.
- You're building something long-lived that shouldn't change under you. Debian. Fewer package updates means fewer surprises months into a project.
- You want to test against what Linux will look like in six months, or you need a newer kernel feature. Fedora. It's upstream. For the opposite instinct, testing against what's already stable in production, pick Rocky Linux.
- Your servers run RHEL. Rocky Linux, which follows RHEL's releases package for package.
- You want to understand exactly what's running and why, with nothing decided for you. Arch. That control costs setup time: nothing is configured by default, starting with networking.
Alpine Linux 3.24 is in the catalog too, as a small installer for anyone who wants a minimal musl-based system and doesn't mind running setup-alpine by hand.
How much setup each one takes
Velo Workspaces 1.2 changed this answer a lot. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Rocky Linux come as official cloud images: you enter a username and password, and cloud-init creates the account and adds this Mac's SSH key on first boot, usually within a minute of the download finishing. Ubuntu, Fedora Server and Rocky Linux can also run their own installers automatically. Everything else installs by hand in the workspace's display, exactly as on a PC.
Related reading: what a disposable development environment is, useful whichever distro you pick; Server or Desktop; and what a VM on Apple Silicon is, if you're starting from scratch. Or download Velo Workspaces and try it yourself.