Zend certified PHP/Magento developer

VirtualBox/VMWare Fusion w/ Macboon Pro M1Pro chip

I am dying for help here. I have read forums on here, on Oracle site, several other dev sites and I just can’t seem to get anywhere. I see so many places that VB 7.0 Beta can now support Apple’s M1pro silcon chips, but I have tried a half a dozen ISOs, OVAs, vmdks, and always get errors and aborted machines.

I am studying for PenTest+ and trying to add VMs like Metasplotable2/3, DVWA, Labtainers, even tried the most recent Fedora/Ubuntu/Kali ISO and no luck. I even tried VMWare Fusion (free version for home use) and still no luck. Has anyone had luck with any of the free virtualization options?