First of all, let’s get some terminology out of the way. In the wild, the terms x86, x86_64, x64, and amd64 can be used to refer to the same very common Intel-based architecture we find on most PCs and servers. In the same vein, the architecture used on Apple M1 processors may be referred to as ARM, ARM64, ARMv8 64, and aarch64. It’s kind of a mess, but don’t think too much about it. Just remember the names.

Lima (short for Linux on Mac) is a virtual machine management tool for running Linux boxes (think Vagrant, but for development tooling). It focuses on offering a convenient way to run and interact with containerd, but its high customizability allows for a lot more. The examples folder in its repository gives a good idea of its capabilities.