Dual Boot.... why when you can virtualise ;-)

[m.e.slater]

This looks very exciting. Firstly, the beta is free "Download a free, fully functional copy of Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for Mac OS X now!"

 

Secondly, it seems it can virtualise just about any operating system "Use any version of Windows (3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, Me, 2000, NT, XP, 2003), any Linux distribution, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, or MS-DOS in secure virtual machines running alongside Mac OS X."

 

and last but not least... they say it's very fast "Driven by full support for dual-core processors and Intel Virtualization Technology (included in almost every new Intel-powered Mac), virtual machines created using Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta offer near-native performance and rock-solid stability."

 

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/

 

Go grab it and try it out for yourselves. I've just downloaded so I'll let you know. I'm gonna try booting from my boot camp partition :-)

 

I'll keep you posted on my progress....

 

 

EDIT: well from what I can see so far it appears that you CANNOT boot from your boot camp partition.... The only options you get when creating a new machine are 'Use an existing IMAGE', 'create a new IMAGE' or 'don't install a HDD'

[rumz]

Yeah I'd like to know if I can boot from that partition too. Virtualization would be nice for programs that can run a little slower than native, but I don't think I want to try to play games through a virtual XP-- I don't want to waste space on 2 different installs of Windows.

[Peacabbage]

Veery cool. This will make running the occassional windows application much more convenient. $50 is a pretty good deal if it works well.

[m.e.slater]

Okay well I can verify that it works. Installed XP pro. Other than the mouse being a bit sluggish the actual OS is very fast. Don't think it would be up to playing any games but if the mouse wasn't sluggish I wouldn't know it was being virtualised.

 

You can't boot from a real HDD and neither can I boot from a real DVD drive. There is an option for using the real DVD drive but it's greyed out(?). Very odd, perhpas because it's still in beta.

[Olaf Wagner]

Okay well I can verify that it works. Installed XP pro. Other than the mouse being a bit sluggish the actual OS is very fast. Don't think it would be up to playing any games but if the mouse wasn't sluggish I wouldn't know it was being virtualised.

 

You can't boot from a real HDD and neither can I boot from a real DVD drive. There is an option for using the real DVD drive but it's greyed out(?). Very odd, perhpas because it's still in beta.

 

I had the same problem with a CD. I think the problem is if you insert the CD whilst Parallels is running. I closed Parallels and opened it again, and then it was able to bind to the physical CD. I haven't tested this wih a DVD but would assume it should work the same way.

 

Therefore, it does indeed seem to be something that needs to be ironed out by Parallels.

[paulmoscow]

It seems they have memory management problems similar to current unstable builds of Q. While Windows installs and runs fine, MS Money 2004 hangs or crashes. And it is the only program I personally need to run in Windows (unfortunately, there's no decent Mac alternative right now.)

[guiyoforward]

Hi there! Current users of parallel, what amount of memory do you have on your macs?

 

Is there any chance I can run a stripped down version of xp (say, with 128 or 192mb of ram) in Parallel in a mac mini with the standard 512mb of ram, or would it be unusable?

 

I couldn't find the "memory requirements" for the Parallel.

 

thanks

[m.e.slater]

guiyoforward: I am doing exactly what you just said. Running a stripped down version on a mac mini core duo with 512mb of ram. Gave XP 128mb and it seemed to be fine. You couldn't do anything extreme but it's usable. What would you want to run?

[rangr]

Have XP pro working on parallels. Network, internet, installed apps all work very well.

 

All that keeps this from being the perfect solution is a better video driver. Mouse feels sluggish, though making 3d models in CAD software is no problem. Would be nice to have widescreen resolutions to choose from, though from the parallels forum postings, they've mentioned they're working on this.

 

Boot Camp worked great, but restarting to switch os'es is not a productive possibility.

 

Running:

MacBook Pro, 1.83 Ghz, 1.5GB ram.

[zenvision]

any screenshots? im curious

[Swad]

So is this pure virtualization or does it have some emulation thrown in as well? If it's virtual machines only, this is big news.

[m.e.slater]

http://www.parallels.com/files/upload/Para...1_Datasheet.pdf

 

The datasheet says nothing of emulation but mentions the word virtualisation about 400 times! It seems to just be taking advantage of the new virtualisation features of the core duo... if anyone finds otherwise please let us know

 

oh, things like the network card etc are emulated obviously but i assume you were asking about the actual processing.

[Olaf Wagner]

I also have XP running. Installation was very smooth, all drivers working just fine. Now I'm installing Office '12' to see how well it really runs.

 

I can see this is 'Beta' software though - struggled quite a bit with CD support. It works, then doesn't work, then works, when you attempt to 'bind' the Virtual machine to various physical discs inserted into the drive.

 

However, this definately looks promising. Also there doesn't seem to be a 'save state' feature (where one can 'dehydrate' the entire virtual machine to the HDD). Well, if there is I haven't stumbled onto it yet.

 

 

 

 

Here is a screenshot:

[guiyoforward]

guiyoforward: I am doing exactly what you just said. Running a stripped down version on a mac mini core duo with 512mb of ram. Gave XP 128mb and it seemed to be fine. You couldn't do anything extreme but it's usable. What would you want to run?

 

I would use some specific tools for LaTeX editing that I have for PC only. Nothing too demanding. XP with 128 should be bearable, but I wonder: does the Mac feel responsive at all while parallels is running? I mean, can you open safari, say, at the same time.

 

I am doubting between a stock mac mini ($775, no tax, from amazon) or a 1gb one from apple ($941 including tax, even with education price...). Should I be paying $160 for the full gb?

 

BTW, if you own a legal copy of XP I've seen a file around which does a "barely naked" version of XP, with very few drivers and services. You can make your own with nLite (but you have probably done that or something similar already).

 

Best,

 

g.

[m.e.slater]

Glad you mentioned that before you bought one - GET THE GIG OF RAM! Seriously... the only thing letting mine down is the 512mb, at times it's painful. Processor intensive things it absolutely loves, but give it an app that wants ram... not a chance! Especially if you're planning on giving 128 of it to windows

 

$160 sounds about right, I thought it sounded expensive untill I checked the prices of the RAM on it's own and it turns out that apples' prices really aren't that bad.

 

To be honest if I were to be buying now, with the experience I have of the 512 model, I think I'd go for the 2GB. It's up to you of course.

 

It would definately be able to handle LaTeX. And yeah, I made one with nLite from my disk but I'll have a look for that "barely naked" file, sounds like it might be good...

 

Michael

[rangr]

absolutely the mac software is responsive while running parallels. i'm able to reply to email in mail while xp starts up, and go back and forth between the os'es as if from one application to another.

 

with 1.5Gb, i usually have about 6-7 apps open and so far parallels has been just another app.

 

very much looking forward to two things though:

1. access to the startup disk. can see it as a workgroup computer, but it crashes xp when selected.

2. better video drivers. something close to Boot Camp would be great...

 

overall, this is exactly what i've been waiting for.

[m.e.slater]

Yep, I've attached a screen shot of me listening to iTunes, encoding a dvd to h264 and runnig windows with 128mb of ram.

 

I'm running a core duo mac mini with only 512mb of ram... all in all this is looking very promising.

Bed time now i think! Night

 

Oh and I know the network isn't working in windows, I couldn't be bothered to set it up!

 

not_bad_.tiff

[Peacabbage]

Just installed XP Pro... works well! I am dissapointed that it doesn't support the native resolution of my 20in iMac (1680x1050), but I'm sure they'll add that later.

 

CPU usage seems good, but it used about 130% while it was reading from the CD during the install. I hope it's just their CDROM driver and not disk access in general.

 

I did have a little trouble while installing XP. The first time it sort of locked up while "installing devices". The billboard continued to scroll by with all of the wonderful benefits of XP (ha) but the installation wasn't going anywhere. I restarted and used FAT32 instead of NTFS and it worked. Not sure if it had anything to do with that though.

 

Oh, the sluggishness of the mouse is remedied a bit by choosing "Install Parallels Tools" from the VM menu. It's still not perfect though.

 

. Also there doesn't seem to be a 'save state' feature (where one can 'dehydrate' the entire virtual machine to the HDD). Well, if there is I haven't stumbled onto it yet.

 

Yeah there is. Hit the power button, then "suspend".

[Olaf Wagner]

Yeah there is. Hit the power button, then "suspend".

 

Thanks.

 

Yes, I stumbled onto this after submitting my post. I always assumed that this meant to 'Suspend' XP. However this function works very nicely. Actually I'm very impressed with 'Parallels' - I had just never heard of them prior to today.

 

I wonder if VMWare has a Mac Version in the works?

[kitch]

Seems to run pretty fast. You can't use the network adapter if only have Wifi. I'm too lazy to drag out a cable. Should be fixed in the next beta. Their developers seem to troll their forums fairly regularly. I really just want it for work stuff. Lotus notes and ATT VPN dialer. XPSP2 install was VERY fast from iso image fyi.

 

My hope is to only use BootCamp XP for gaming. Which by the way is INSANELY fast. Loving it.

[Nickhamm]

I just did about the most pointless thing I can think of doing, but I used my Dell Laptop Hankintosh running Mac OS 10.4.5 to run Parallels Workstation and I got it to run Windows XP at a fairly decent speed, even on my Pentium M 1.8GHz Processor.

 

[jrrjrr]

Does Parallels have any sound card support yet? I don't seem to see anything about it.

 

On the surface, it all looks very similar to the OS X port of Qemu called "Q". I have been using that for about a week, and I'll probably try the same setup now with Parallels to see which runs smoother/faster. I've been using Windows 2000 as the guest OS because it installs smaller and I imagine runs faster than XP, for basic uses.

[L EphIno]

Does Parallels have any sound card support yet? I don't seem to see anything about it.

 

On the surface, it all looks very similar to the OS X port of Qemu called "Q". I have been using that for about a week, and I'll probably try the same setup now with Parallels to see which runs smoother/faster. I've been using Windows 2000 as the guest OS because it installs smaller and I imagine runs faster than XP, for basic uses.

 

Honestly this visualization seems like a rip off of vmware, looks the same, acts the same, even the same drag bars for setting everything up. One thing that vmware does that this company seriously needs to look into, is it can use a full partition in the visualization process. Since I already have boot camp installed I don't want to devote even more hd space to xp. After the parallel guys get that working, I'd consider using it, till then this is just a crappy rendition of vmware. Personally I'll stick to chicken of the vnc, connect to my windows machine and run my software that way. Once again, this is a personal opinion. And no I'm not against visualization, infact I use vmware server on a Dual proc, dual core, hyperthreading server with 6 network interfaces, to run several different servers on the same machine. For instance, running active directory on one vm, and running your replica on another, then running ghost on another and brightmail on a 4th. If I have an os crash on one vm, I can simply repair that one vm instead of resetting up a whole server. Plus for those that haven't used vm where, the snapshots are AWESOME!!! Easiest way to backup a server.... EVER!

[eboneceo]

Interestingly the next Leopard OS will have this built in.

[kitch]

Does Parallels have any sound card support yet? I don't seem to see anything about it.

 

On the surface, it all looks very similar to the OS X port of Qemu called "Q". I have been using that for about a week, and I'll probably try the same setup now with Parallels to see which runs smoother/faster. I've been using Windows 2000 as the guest OS because it installs smaller and I imagine runs faster than XP, for basic uses.

 

Didn't notice sound support. But I've tried Q before and this is VASTLY better. XP installed and runs with no issues. Biggest thing, Q install of OS took 2 hours. XP install on P took like 30 minutes tops.