I’ve left this up as an additional approach but VMWare states they are now supporting Apple Silicon (M1/M2) and Virtualbox also states they are now supporting the new Apple Silicon chips however I am still seeing issues.
The Universal Turing Machine (UTM) provides a solution for virtualization on the new M1 based Apple computers. Below are the instructions to install the UTM and a Debian Linux VM instance. Special and sincere thanks to CISS 210 student Trevor Radez for developing these instructions as no CIS faculty presently have an Apple M1 system. Note the following is a pdf viewer so students will have to scroll through the pages but a downloadable pdf of the instructions is located here: UTM Debian Linux Instructions (interestingly I last used HomeBrew to jailbreak a Wii)
Again, thanks Trevor!
UTM