Parallels has released a new version of its Mac desktop virtualization package specifically for all those longtime PC users switching to Jobsian hardware for the very first time. Well, it's really an old version of the company's Mac desktop virtualization package - Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac - but it's been joined by a few …
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Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 10:04 GMT
Well, like the sort of Windows machines you get from Dell if you're not smart enough to kill the trialware. It bloats itself into every nook of your Mac and adds treacle to your boot times. Yuck.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 10:04 GMT
I'm not surprised they are going after fresh meat.
Doing a software update on Parallels - it suggested the update - then on launch I find I couldn't run it without upgrading for $$$. A new copy of VMWare Desktop was less than the Parallels upgrade price.
And Desktop is a hell of a lot more stable.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 11:36 GMT
Were the 'cult' and 'Jobsian' jibes actually necessary for getting the meat of this news across? no. So why include them and alienate a large segment of your audience? I shall conclude therefor that you are simply a shrill for the Gatesian Hegemony and ignore any and all articles from you in the future. Nice work that man.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 11:55 GMT
1) Shill. You mean shill.
2) Surely you know by now that we hate everyone equally?
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 11:55 GMT
Unfortunately, the Parallels and VMWare are slow as dogshit when running Visual Studio. I wanted to go full Mac, but ended up having to build another Windows box because I was pulling my hair out from the second I hit F5 to the 15-20 seconds it took for the browser to pop up. This takes about 1-2 seconds on a Windows box.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 12:05 GMT
They keep charging for their annual upgrades. Then they don't fix bugs in the current version, forcing you to upgrade again.
It's like Ballmer's running their strategy.
VMWare is a lot cheaper and, IMHO, a lot less buggy. It also works across platforms, so if you've created a VM on a Mac, it'll work on a Windows machine and vice-versa.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 12:57 GMT
As one of those evil penguin-shagging communists, tempted by a Mac, I have a couple of things I want to ask:
Can I use Parallels to run Ubuntu instead of Windows?
Can I build my favourite applications from source and run them natively under OS X?
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 14:03 GMT
I notice a lot of negative comments about Parallels and felt some balance was required. Other than one buggy upgrade back in version 3 somewhere, I've had no problems with Parallels. I run Visual Studio and a variety of high-end CAD packages in it with no problems. Speed is excellent - nothing like the comments above.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 14:45 GMT
I've just purchased my first Mac (a Mac Book Pro) and now wish I'd done it years ago. All I can say about Apple products, is that they work.
I use Visual Studio everyday and have found it to run perfectly well on a virtual machine. I don't run either Parallels or VMware, instead I use Sun's VirtualBox (with no problems).
You can run Linux with VirtualBox.
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 15:00 GMT
"Hmm #
By A J Stiles Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 12:27 GMT
Linux
As one of those evil penguin-shagging communists, tempted by a Mac, I have a couple of things I want to ask:
Can I use Parallels to run Ubuntu instead of Windows?"
i am running parallels on a mac, with xp, and ubuntu, kubuntu on no problems, it give you the option on parallels 4.0 what you want to install with it, you can even do windows vista ;-( or win 7.
and this is on a mac mini 2007 intel, i tried VMwares but could not get my head around it, was used to using parallels.
" Can I build my favourite applications from source and run them natively under OS X?"
i should think so, but then again i don't do that :-)
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 22:54 GMT
There's no need for Parallels (or VMWare) to run Ubuntu since, as Galus posted, VirtualBox works quite well for that. However, if you already have VMWare for some reason, Ubuntu runs just dandy under it.
As far as compiling Linux apps to run natively, it depends a lot on the app. Many of them work without a lot of trouble; you can use MacPorts or Fink to manage the UNIX-space libraries that most modern Linux apps rely on, and most terminal-based apps will just compile and work out of the box without any trouble. For GUI apps, however, you're generally better off finding an OSX-native alternative, as X11 is a bit of a mess under OSX (simply because OSX's windowing model is so fundamentally different than X11's).
Some apps like GIMP do have decently-supported ports (which still run under X11 but they hide the fiddlier bits of it - sadly, the various OSX-native GTK ports seem to always be in a perpetually stalled state), but there are so many better things than them on the Mac anyway (such as Pixelmator, which is pretty cheap and while it's no Photoshop it blows GIMP away).
Posted Tuesday 25th August 2009 22:54 GMT
Re: fav applications, you can take a look at MacPorts ( http://www.macports.org/ ) or indeed build from scratch, if not someone already doing a build. To give you an idea on some of what comes standard on a Mac (10.5.8, ask again on Friday and you'll get specs for 10.6)
Python 2.5.1,
Ruby 1.8.6 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 287),
GNU bash version 3.2.17(1)-release,
ksh sh (AT&T Research) 1993-12-28 s+,
tcsh 6.14.00 (Astron) 2005-03-25
GNU Emacs 22.1.1,
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.2 (2008 Aug 9, compiled Nov 12 2008 15:36:47) Included patches: 1-22,
X11 XQuartz 2.1.6 (xorg-server 1.4.2-apple33)
And when you install the (free) tools, you get GCC 4.0.1
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