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Choosing Parallels Over BootCamp for OS X
juusan writes "Sysadmin Jeremy Randall outlines his installation and impressions of Parallels for Mac OS X. Is it better than BootCamp? Does it run succesfully on a Mac Mini? Does it pass the scrutiny of a fairly picky system administrator? Yes indeed, on all counts."
Or VPC because that's all it is. It's just a virtualizer. The advantages are you don't need to leave your main OS, you can have multiple guests, even runnig at the same thing if your system is powerful enough, and it probaly supports some kind of snapshot system, like VMWare. The disadvantages are of course the same as with VMware, mainly speed and hardware support. At least until VT support gets ramped up or hypervisors become popular you aren't going to get anywhere near native speeds. Also at this point the hardware in VMs is pretty low level. If you have a nice pro 3D card or multi-channel audio card, your guest OSes will not have access to their features.
Like Boot Camp, I think Parallels it getting more hype than it mertis just because it happens ot run on OS-X. Yep, it virtualizes a computer and lets you run Linux or Windows at a reasonable speed. Ok great, same thing as VMWare on a Linux or Windows host. Certianly not worthless, but nothing that's really news.
Use a native install (Boot Camp) if it's speed and access to hardware that are the prime requirements and you are willing to spend time booting back and forth. Use a virtualizer if you just need incidental access to the other OS and can take teh speed hit.
And it does everything I need it to do, and does it well. I can VPN to my company's network and can run all the software I need to get my work done, and it runs plenty fast. It also handles the older games I still play with no noticeable problems (starcraft, civ 3, etc). I plan to try out some new games like Oblivion soon, just to see how well that runs. I'm not as optimistic about that, however.
:) I avoid computational and memory intensive stuff on the Win2K VM, so that potential downfall doesn't cause me any trouble.
The key advantages to me, over using something like BootCamp, is that I don't have to reboot my machine to access my Windows only stuff, and I minimize my risk of cross contamination. I'm less likely to hose my OSX install if I destroy my Win2K install (which I am prone to doing).
No. For starters, it can't directly access the graphics hardware, which makes it useless for almost any 3D gaming. It also uses an enormous amount of CPU time sitting around doing absolutely nothing. Seriously- XP, sitting doing nothing, nothing open- uses 20% of my Macbook's CPU. In Qemu (or rather, the Q Project build of QEMU), it's under 5%...and QEMU is emulating, whereas Parallels supposedly is using virtualization technology. What the hell?
My macbook only needs about 5% of CPU time using parallels. But that is running windows 2000. Maybe its not parallels fault that XP is doing stuff when its supposed to be idle?
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
- Hardware accellerated graphics - doesn't need to be perfect or native-speed, but anything is better than software (I hate the current redraws when resizing windows)
- Direct HD partition support so we can boot off the same 'system' and have the same applications and data, with the only thing needed being a seperate Hardware profile in Windows - would make things a lot easier to use and convenient (Boot directly into windows for games, boot in Parallels for work, as needed)
Plus I would add a third: bring the price back down to $49.99 as it was originally.(From http://www.apple.com/getamac/windows.html)
The funny thing is, they mention "starting up your Mac in Windows XP"--sounds like some of the copy writers need a crash-course in the difference between multibooting and virtualization.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Using procexp, the program that you suggest, tells me that my computer is currently using 7% of its CPU.
3% of that is Winamp, which I did not bother to pause. 1% of that is VNC, which I am running in the background. 2% is "System" - I don't know what this consists of, but considering that I have three windows updating frequently, I don't mind too much. 1% appears to be getting lost in rounding error. Note that this is an Intel system which predates hyperthreading. It is not exactly a powerhouse.
I suggest fixing your computer - whatever's wrong with it, it's not Windows's fault.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
The Windows setup gets slow for some unknown reason. It gains unwanted features like Sony DRM and the CoolWebSearch toolbar. Pretty soon the Windows partition is just a big waste of space.
For me, it was when my NT4 setup got hacked over the local network. Probably the C$ administrative share had something to do with it. (WTF was that for anyway? I never asked for that. I disabled it many times, but Windows would helpfully restore the damn thing.) Fortunately I had NT4 on D:, making the c:autoexec.bat vandalism harmless. After that though, I would always physically disconnect the network cable before booting Windows. Pretty soon I took to leaving Mozilla running for weeks in Linux.
A rather superficial review. As a long time user of VPC on my G4 PB(s) and now using a MacBook Pro 15" (2 GB Ram) I can honestly say Parallels is good for a first off product. While it supports DirectX 2D it does not support DirectX 3D (no I'm not a gamer!) I have a Windows marine navigation application which uses DirectX 3D and it does not run on Parallels. I suspect that support will be forthcoming but it probably will target DirectX Version 10 (Vista). I've been able to access USB peripherals (LaCie DL DVD writer, Keyspan USB to Serial addapter). Fidelity is good, stability is good, performance is excellent and this is with the released product for which I have a permanent key. I also have Boot Camp installed and it works well and does support fully DirectX 3D. My navigation application works well under boot camp. The only hassle is the separate disk partition and the reboot. Windows XP runs well in this environment and wireless networking came up without a hitch! The peripherals which don't have Apple supported drivers yet (USB camera, ambient light sensor etc.) are really not a problem for me. So for full fidelity Boot Camp is the go. For everything else Parallels wins hands down!
I've been using Parallels Workstation for the Mac (or whatever they call it now) for a couple of months now. I admin a respectably-sized Active Directory and radmind'ed Mac network. We also have a dozen or so OpenBSD servers in our closet, so having a machine that can work with Windows, Macs, and has all of my fun UNIX tools is great. For years I've had two or three boxes connected via a KVM, but this is superior. I have a dual-display set up with my Intel iMac, with Parallels (WinXP) in one display, and the MacOS in the other. I can share files between the two, and I don't need to fiddle with a KVM switch, which never really seems to handle USB device removal/insertion very well.
This is the ultimate test of Parallels in my mind: I am running the Exchange 5.5 Administrator tool on my Mac (we have a legacy 5.5 install that we're migration away from). Do any of you realize what a perversion this is? It runs great!
Oh, and the Parallels team is super-responsive to bug reports. I am quite happy with this product.