Setting up my Macbook to program a BBB in assembly

I’m an Electrical Engineering student taking a class in microprocessors and we’re using the BeagleBone Black for the course. The class has a lab with BBB’s set up already, but I want to be able to set up my own programming environment using my laptop, if possible.

Other students have made it sound like this is a hard thing to do, but I’m dubious. There are only so many lab stations for the number of students in the class. However, I’m also open to the idea that this just might be more work than its worth.

I’m wondering if there are any good resources for my position, or just general advice on how to set up a macbook pro to program a BBB through USB, or through some intermediate device. I’m not familiar with how to work with microcontrollers yet; this is my introduction. Thanks!

A quick goggle search brought up these:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/2__oue7z23c

http://ianrrees.github.io/2016/07/10/cross-compiling-for-beaglebone-from-macos.html

https://e2e.ti.com/support/processors/f/791/t/312081

As is stated in the google groups post, your best bet would be to use either VirtualBox or VMWare Fusion and create a Linux VM to cross compile from.

Cheers,

Jon