How to Install CentOS 8 on a Mac with VMware Fusion
By Tony Mackay ·
This post will show you how to install CentOS 8 on a Mac using VMware's Desktop virtualization software.
Introduction
VMware Fusion* is a desktop virtualization program that lets you run multiple different operating systems on your Mac at the same time. This is great for developers because it allows you to test software on a machine similar to what is used in production. And with VMware Fusion Pro* you can create snapshots that let you rollback changes, or you can clone existing virtual machines to speed up the deployment of test environments.
In this post, we’ll create a CentOS 8 VM so that you can run Linux on your Mac without needing extra hardware.
Prerequisites
Before we begin, you should have VMware Fusion* installed on your Mac and have downloaded the minimal CentOS 8 ISO.
Let’s begin.
Step 1: Create Virtual Machine
Open VMware Fusion, click + then New…

The Easy Install feature would not work for me with version 11.5.6 of VMware Fusion. I’m guessing there’s a problem with the kickstart script because the installation would fail with an error message at the end.
To get around this problem, I used the Create a custom virtual machine option.

Select CentOS 8 64-bit then click Continue.

Select Legacy BIOS then click Continue.

Select Create a virtual disk then click Continue.

Click Customize Settings.

Enter a name and location to save the VM, then click Save.

Click CD/DVD (IDE).

Select Choose a disc or image from the picker.

Browse to the CentOS minimal ISO image then click Open.

Connect the ISO by checking the Connect CD/DVD Drive option.

Close the Settings window then power on the VM.

Step 2: Install CentOS
Select Install CentOS Linux 8 then press Enter.

Wait for the graphical user interface installer to load.

Select your language then click Continue.

Select Installation Destination.

Select the VMware drive then click Done.

Click Begin Installation.

While the files are being copied assign a root password and create a user.

Once the installation is finished, click Reboot.

You are now ready to login with the user, you just created.

Step 3: Configure Network
Once you login to the system for the first time, you will notice the internet does not work. This is because the network needs to be configured. You can enable the network adapter by running the following command:
ifup ens33
You should now be able to ping Google:
ping google.com
Step 4: Install VMware Tools
Now that you have internet access, you can install VMware Tools with the following command:
yum install open-vm-tools
VMware Tools makes the VM run faster and it let’s you copy and paste between the Mac and VM when using a desktop operating systems.
Conclusion
VMware Fusion* is a great tool for developers when creating software for multiple operating systems. In this tutorial, I showed you how to get CentOS running on a Mac as a virtual machine so that you can run Linux without extra hardware.
Read Next
- The Best Books to Learn Virtualization, Linux and Automation
- Recommended Tools and Software for System Administrators
- How to Install Fedora Workstation 32 on a Mac with VMware Fusion
- How to Install Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 on a Mac with VMware Fusion
Tony is the founder and editor of GraspingTech, a blog that helps developers and business owners deploy modern web applications to the cloud. He has written over one hundred tutorials which have been read by more than a million people. Some of the topics he covers are Linux, Virtualization, DevOps and web development.