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VMware Fusion goes Beta
Rahul writes "Fusion is a new VMware product that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows and Linux in virtual machines on Mac OS X. The Mac virtualization market is presently dominated by Parallels and it will be worth watching if VMware can gain the mindshare despite its late entry. Ars Technica reports: 'The nice thing about VMWare Fusion is that it already supports some of the stuff that the Parallels Beta2 released yesterday just added, such as USB 2.0 and most USB devices, CD/DVD drive support, and drag-and-drop between environments (unless the guest environment is Linux, that is). You can also run multiple Fusion environments at once or assign multiple processors to your virtual machine(s), if you're into that sort of thing.'"
Although I guess I can sympathize with Parallels, who have spotted a niche and gone for it, I think that competition is great. It will be particularly interesting to see whether or not VMWare charge for this or whether it's just a freebie a la VMWare Player on the PC - I suppose it's likely they'll charge for it though. In any case, I'll be buying it, along with my Parallels license. And hey, may the best product win.
--- Nick, hard at work
I've downloaded it and have a VMWare image downloading...
The Parallels tools have things like image import that VMWare is missing though.
Agile Artisans
I use Parallels, but only for Linux (MATLAB, which is not OS X/Intel native yet). I've noticed that the features available for virtualizing Windows are far beyond those available for Linux, and that it's only getting worse. According to the article summary, the same is true for VMWare.
For example, I cannot:
-Install Parallels tools for linux, so everytime I suspend my VM, the clock freezes and ends up several days behind schedule when I resume
-Use the nifty new feature that eliminates the Windows desktop and instead just shows the application window on the OS X desktop
-Copy and paste directly between machines (I have to rsync between hosts, though because the VM IP is changing, is only convenient in one direction)
-Easily change resolutions of the Linux VM.
The list goes on.
Now, is this because Windows is just what everyone is running in a VM, so all of the resources are going toward it, or is there some inherent difficulty in replicating these features in Linux. As an aside, couldn't someone in the OSS community (I am not talented enough, sorry) program Linux-based additions to faciliate some of those features, above (like the clock sync)?
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
What I really wanted was compatibility with VMWare's other apps, and they delivered. I can justify a Mac at my desk if I can author sessions that eventually live up on our server farm.
Interoperability is HUGE when it comes to virtualization. There's a lot of value to being able to 'build' a server in my bedroom and upload it to bigger metal when I get to work. Parallels didn't have that, VMWare does. I'm going with VMWare.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Parallells is slick andif you run one of their supported OSes, it is nice. However, VMWare supports a much wider range of OSes. No one has built, let's say, SkyOS images for Parallels but they have for VMWare.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
When is somebody going to do this? Hell, when is somebody going to fork Dosbox and turn it into something usable? Dosbox has an immense amount of cool technical work in it, but the UI absolutely unusable. Why can't we have an actual Virtual Machine environment that can boot DOS from a disk image, and provide excellent sound support, and CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics support? And *gasp* how about joystick support on par with most NES, SNES, etc emulators? Furthermore, how about some sensible CPU speed scaling? Like every other emulator for other platforms has available.
Right now, no it doesn't. They also won't comment on upcoming features so you don't know if it will or not. If it doesn't though I believe that it will be the only one of VMware's virtualization software that doesn't so that's pretty unlikely.
It seems to pretty much be VMware Workstation on OS X so I would expect it to have pretty much the same features eventually.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I like being able to run OS X in VMWare. Thank gawd for hacked copies since Apple refuses to sell OS X for this use and you have to jump through hoops to make it work. Makes it handy to test out programs and web sites you're developing.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.