I was happy to hear the release version of Parallels Desktop for Mac is now available. I, apparently like lots of folks with Intel-based Macs, have been curious about running non-Mac operating systems on the Apple machines. I thought about trying Boot Camp, but I really didn’t want to dedicate a partition on the main hard drive, nor did I really want to turn a Mac into just another “boring” Windows PC. So Parallels was an obvious choice. I’m not comparing Parallels to Boot Camp, obviously, since I’ve only tried one of them.
A quick disclaimer: I consider myself to be platform agnostic, or perhaps more accurately, enthusiastic about many computing platforms. I think Mac OS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other operating systems each have strength and weaknesses, and I enjoy using all of them. That ideal is really the driving force behind using Parallels in the first place.
This is just an initial run-through. I have not delved very deeply into the technical details of this product.
Installation
I downloaded Parallels and obtained a trial key. It installed easily on the Mac and I began building some virtual machines (VMs). I thought I’d save some space on my primary hard drive by building the VMs on an external USB drive. I also was curious if using an external drive would even work. The initial Windows XP VM went fine. I was in the process of installing SP2 when the VM just up and died. After that I couldn’t get it to run at all; it would start to boot and then just quit with no warning.
I had been impressed enough with Parallels before my VMs started crashing that I had already purchased a full license key and had activated it. For a few moments I wondered if that had been a good idea.
I decided to try building another VM running a different OS, still on the external drive. I got to the second CD of my Fedora Core 5 install when it up and died. Now I had two VMs that wouldn’t run.
I rebooted the Mac (I know, I know…) just to see if that would make any difference. When the OS came up my USB drive didn’t mount. Disk Utility showed errors. I opted to “fix” the USB drive and it found two problem files which were truncated to zero bytes. They were my two VMs, of course.
So I went back and started building a Fedora Core 5 VM on the main hard drive. It installed fine and ran well. Emboldened, I built a new Windows XP VM (on the main hard drive too, obviously) and it ran well also. I installed SP2 manually and then ran Windows Update and installed all the patches and fixes.
At this point I burned copies of both of these new VMs to DVD so I could just go back to those “base” installs if I messed anything up. Then I started adding applications and customizing as if they were actual computers I would use day to day.
Impressions
Parallels Desktop for Mac worked quite well. The XP VM was pretty snappy, especially after installing the Parallels tools, which made the mouse cursor seamless with the Mac desktop. Performance was very good; the XP VM ran comparable to a regular mid-range PC. Occasionally the overall system would slow down for a few moments, or the beach ball would appear. Since I had iTunes and Firefox running on the host OS, and had burned some discs at the same time, it felt like acceptable occasional lag given what else I had the machine doing.
The machine I was running Parallels on was a Core Duo 1.6 GHz with 1GB RAM. Parallels can utilize Intel’s VT-x technology to enhance virtual machine performance. Sometimes I received an alert from Parallels that VT-x was supported but not used, sometimes I didn’t. There are several threads on the Parallels support forums and on the Apple support forums about which Intel Macs can use VT-x and which can’t. I did not look in to this very deeply. From what I read it seems to be a firmware glitch that causes problems on some machines. But that was really just my speculation from reading what others were saying about it. Since my VM performance was acceptable, I was not too worried about it, though I do plan to keep an eye out for future information and resolution.
Concerns
It would be nice to run VMs on the external USB drive. USB support in the VMs seemed lacking. I couldn’t connect my VMs to USB devices attached to the host Mac, such as printers. The Parallels user guide didn’t mention printing at all, which seemed strange to me. I ended up connecting to a network printer from the XP VM; the network printer was actually on the host Mac. That worked, though network printing to the local host machine either feels awkward to me or very sensible to me, I’m not quite sure which.
Overall opinion
I mentioned that I was impressed enough to purchase the license while still in my initial stages of testing. I think that turned out to be the correct decision. I think Parallels is a must-have for tech savvy folks who want to run other operating systems on their Intel Macs. It supports pretty much all of the operating systems for the x386 architecture, so this is a sweet tool for building virtual labs or just trying out new OS versions without dedicating a whole computer. There are so many possibilities for geeks.
I think Parallels is a pretty compelling option for “regular” folks that, for example, use –or would like to use – a Mac at home but need to use Windows for work. Building a VM is time consuming, though, and may stretch the skills of some folks, so that should be accounted for.
As for Parallels, the company, I hope they will provide significant updates to registered users without making them pay constantly. While this release feels fairly solid, I suspect there are plenty of bugs to fix and features to enhance. Quite a few of the features that they say on their web site are “within scope of future development” would add a lot to the product. I hope they get some of those finished and out to the users in a timely manner.
I have read some rumors about Apple buying Parallels and incorporating it in to the next OS X release, Leopard (when are they going to stop using the stupid cat names?). I have no idea how reasonable that may be, but having VM capability in the base Mac OS would be a fantastic addition. Apple does mention Parallels on their web site and, indirectly I believe, via their TV ads that tout running Windows on the Mac as a legitimate selling point.
And as for me, I’m planning to try running Windows Vista under Parallels once my beta DVD arrives or my download completes (whichever happens first!). I’d like to see what the latest version of FreeBSD is like nowadays, since it’s been awhile since I’ve had it running. I may install Windows 3.1 just for old time’s sake, if I can get a boot disk image to access my old 3.1 CD. I may even try installing OS/2 Warp if I still have those old CDs somewhere. Fun!
Parallels Desktop for Mac. $49.99. Parallels, Inc. http://www.parallels.com/
June 19th update: Okay, I can’t run a Vista VM since Parallels doesn’t support ACPI yet. Their web site says it will be supported in the next release.
