diff --git a/meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm64.conf b/meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm64.conf
index 4b76e5c1..5ade722d 100644
--- a/meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm64.conf
+++ b/meta-isar/conf/machine/qemuarm64.conf
@@ -9,8 +9,13 @@ KERNEL_NAME ?= "arm64"
 KERNEL_NAME:ubuntu ?= "generic"
 
 IMAGE_FSTYPES ?= "ext4"
+# the ubuntu kernel is an EFI zboot image, so it can only boot via UEFI from wic
+IMAGE_FSTYPES:resolute ?= "wic"
 ROOTFS_EXTRA ?= "128"
 
+IMAGER_BOM:wic += "${GRUB_BOOTLOADER_INSTALL}"
+IMAGER_INSTALL:wic += "${GRUB_BOOTLOADER_INSTALL}"
+
 QEMU_ROOTFS_DEV ?= "vda"
 
 QEMU_ARCH ?= "aarch64"
@@ -18,6 +23,8 @@ QEMU_MACHINE ?= "virt"
 QEMU_CPU ?= "cortex-a57"
 # TODO: start_vm doesn't support multiline vars
 QEMU_DISK_ARGS ?= "-drive file=##ROOTFS_IMAGE##,if=none,format=raw,id=hd0 -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0"
+# virtio-rng is required, cortex-a57 has no CPU RNG and systemd blocks on getrandom()
+QEMU_DISK_ARGS:resolute ?= "-drive file=##ROOTFS_IMAGE##,if=none,format=raw,id=hd0 -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 -device virtio-rng-pci -bios /usr/share/qemu-efi-aarch64/QEMU_EFI.fd"
 
 MACHINE_SERIAL ?= "ttyAMA0"
 BAUDRATE_TTY ?= "115200"