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Parallels Desktop for OS X Reviewed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the virtualization-hot-emulation-not dept.

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put up a great review of the first full release of Parallels' virtualization software for OS X, Parallels Desktop 1.0. From the article: 'Move over emulation, virtualization is in and it's hotter than two Jessica Albas wresting the devil himself in a pit of molten steel. It's no contest, virtualization has it all: multiple operating systems running on the same machine at nearly the full speed of the host's processor with each system seamlessly networking with the next. Add to that the fact that it's cheaper than getting a new machine and you have the guaranteed latest craze. Not even the Hula Hoop can stop this one.'"

10 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Games? by patrixmyth · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How could you write that article without addressing the games issue? The lack of games is still the number one barrier to MACS taking more of the home pc market. I keep 2 machines at home. A mac for visitors, web browsing, video editing and some educational software and a PC to run the latest games. I'd ditch the PC in a second if I could. I'll probably keep my PC laptop, though.

    --
    "Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
  2. Yes, but will it run... by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Vista?

    I mean, it doesn't do a video card, and apparently even the lowest Vista settings need a video card (at least 64MB VRAM, right?). OR do I misunderstand things?

    1. Re:Yes, but will it run... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Insightful
      But the low-end sticker "Vista Capable" requires a DX9 card with 32 MB of VRAM, according to wikipedia. And that's the ultimate low-end.

      Will Vista run on computers with less, just lose some features, so M$ might not want manufs putting the "capable" sticker on lesser hardware so that Vista won't look crummy? I mean, XP is technically capable of running in 640x480 16-color mode...

      32 MB of VRAM just to display/edit Word documents, basic web pages, and Excel tables seems like using Tsar Bomba to kill the mosquito that's keeping you awake at night. And those 3 tasks are what 99% of all business users need, and not much more.

      -b.

  3. Emulation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Move over emulation, virtualization is in

    Err, emulation (at least of winders on the mac) was always for running software designed for a completely different architecture. While the switch to Intel has changed the landscape for the Mac (at least on everything but their high end desktops), emulation is still the way to go when you're trying to run software designed for completely different hardware.

  4. Great. by Above · · Score: 3, Insightful


    So Intel can finally do what IBM developed back in the 1960's. LPAR anyone?

  5. Shared RAM? by xjerky · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One thing that bugs me is tht you have to carve out a dedicated amount of RAM to each guest OS, even if you aren't using all of it. Since I don't intend to do much with XP I've been able to get by by dedicating only 128MB out of the 1GB on my Mac Mini. I wish there was a way for both OSes to see my 1GB of RAM and use only what's needed, but I guess the OS would need Xen-like additions, no?

    --
    A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
  6. Re:I have parallels running by Dis*abstraction · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I hope you paid for that copy, you filching freeloader.

    --
    Bonsai Kitten: TNG
  7. There will soon be more virtual PCs than PCs by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As I've said many times before, virtualization is becoming more and more important (after a hiatus of 20 years when it was the norm) and ultimately there will be more virtual PCs than PCs. This means that ultimately, any PC OS is more likely to be running on a virtual PC than a real one. At that point it makes sense that software should be written with that knowledge in mind. Ie. OSes should have an API that allows them to talk to a host machine and virtualizers should have an API that guest OSes can talk to. This could make it much cleaner to do things like cut-and-paste between different virtual machines running different OSes.

    Of course it's hard to imagine MS and Linus agreeing on such an API. But this isn't a zero sum game. People might choose to install Windows because with virtualization they know they will still be able to run Linux easily. Bill Gates will still have sold you a Windows license even though you're spending most of your time running Linux. So it's in the interest of MS and Linux to figure out how to interoperate between virtual machines.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  8. Is Windows capability on Macs a bad thing? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Insightful
    After all, MacOS represents maybe 5% of the market. Now software makers will have an excuse not to write versions of their software that run natively under MacOS, since they can just tell people to run under Parallels or Boot Camp. BTW, I'm not using/recommending Parallels until it can utilize a separate partition on the HDD - a seperate partition could theoretically give you the choice between vitualization and running 'doze directly if you have an app that does direct hardware access like some games.

    -b.

  9. Re:I have parallels running by daveschroeder · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I can't speak for other people, but I guarantee you these people didn't "buy the software"...because there's no way to buy a standalone copy of Mac OS X (Intel). And I don't buy for a second the contrived sophistry of saying "what if I bought an Intel-based Mac, formatted the drive, use only Linux on it, and wanted to use that copy of Mac OS X (Intel) on my Gateway". Puh-lease. Yeah, "what if?" Except the person didn't asking didn't do that; they pirated Mac OS X. The answer also isn't "well, Apple doesn't sell it standalone, so I have no choice but to pirate it." Give me a break. Also, some people might more reasonably claim they bought (or have) a standalone copy of Mac OS X (PowerPC), and then are pirating Mac OS X (Intel) but feel they're entitled because they bought (or have) a copy of Mac OS X somewhere. Again, bullshit argument: it's not the same product, and if Apple even sold Mac OS X (Intel), it might be for considerably more than what Apple sells the PowerPC standalone version for. The point is, no matter what arguments people make, they're still pirating Mac OS X, EULA or no.

    As for the PS 2 argument, if you somehow got a PS 2 emulator to work using NO Sony information whatsoever, I can't imagine that Sony would have any leg to stand on. In fact, exactly that was done with a Playstation emulator, and the maker of the emulator won. Well, "won" in that the courts decided in their favor, and Sony bought the product from them. This is not the same thing: someone is pirating Mac OS X and coming up with all kinds of reasoning processes to justify it to themselves, all of which are bullshit. It's pretty simple.

    I'll grant this will get murkier when Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) comes, because it will be universal for PowerPC and Intel in one retail box, and if people buy it, I guess I don't have any fundamental problems with the "I bought it so I should be able to do whatever I want to it" crowd, though there's certainly the element of at least recognizing that, at that price point, Apple doesn't *intend* for it to be used that way, and further, will be used in a hacked state that, rightly or wrongly, may ultimately reflect poorly on Apple. Also, any arguments that it might win converts to the Mac are bogus, however correct they may be - Apple must have SOME standing as the creators of the product to determine its distribution and use, no?