>>If you are OK with the bleeding edge, apparently VirtualBox developer preview will run on Apple silicon:
https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-install-virtualbox-apple-silicon-mac/ . That would probably give a more "conventional" VM experience than Parallels.
>>That article does not say if guest OSs need to be ARM-based like Parallels and VMWare Fusion.
Right. Too much uncertainty, and I've done my share of bleeding edge for now.
Having declared some years back that I was buying my last Wintel machine, it looks as if I'm about to get my third. ;-) Mind you, there's some quite nice stuff out there these days, including an Asus machine with a 17" OLED screen that folds and a detached keyboard, so it packs down far more portably than a traditional 17" laptop.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
