Comments on: Parallels or VMware

By: David Marshall

David Marshall — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:41:15 +0000

The Parallels vs. VMware argument is like the Mac vs. PC, or Apple vs. IBM, or Amiga vs. PC. Mostly comes down to preference. Both have good products. Both have a ways to go to make it better. Parallels (SWsoft) may have founded earlier, but VMware was virtualizing the x86 platform longer. The Mac product is based on the Workstation code which has been beaten on by users since 1999.

Watch for the new client Type 1 hypervisors. Better with performance, and are showing a lot of promise. Virtual Computer, Citrix and Neocleus are building solutions.

By: Nathan Parker

Nathan Parker — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:25:15 +0000

If you’re running Vista using Boot Camp and want to use a VM program to access it, definitely use Fusion. Parallels is WAY too troublesome in this situation.

Personally I prefer Fusion. Simpler, better graphics, more power. Plus you can get it half off if you’re a student!

By: Jules

Jules — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:42:42 +0000

I have fusions installed on my mac air (works great) and my mac pro (works not so great). The mac pro has duo processors. I keep getting a message: “make sure you have rights to run the program and to access all directories it uses and rights to access all directories for temporary files.” I then have to uninstall and reinstall fusions. The good news is my virtual machine remains intact during the process and will stay that way so long as I don’t restart the computer or put it to sleep. Unfortunately, after using fusions for about two weeks it does it anyway. I was told it is because I have to designate it to use only one processor- in opposition, it seems, to your opinion that it supports the duo processor. Please advise. Thank you.

By: Curran

Curran — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:07:48 +0000

Just downloaded the trial for VMWare Fusion and I am loving it! I installed Ubuntu, and loved the ease of install and subsequent ease of making sound, network and bluetooth work with my computer with several clicks of the mouse.

VMWare’s integration with OSX is superb, including the ability to put Ubuntu apps in my dock, and run them side by side with other OS X apps.

I will be buying this one for sure! Thanks to you, Chris, I can get a coupon and save a little money! :-)

Cheers,
Curran

By: binarypc

binarypc — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:33:43 +0000

What about VirtualBox?

- It’s Open Source.
- It runs on multiple OS platforms - it is stated to run on Windows, Linux, Mac & Open Solaris.

I had a developer tell me about it the other day. He brought it up because of his frustration with VirtualPC from MS being so behind on updates, patches and releases and the compared cost to VMWare (which is what I normally use).

I’m going to give it a try myself and thought you might be interested in hearing about it/seeing it.

http://www.virtualbox.org

By: Parallels or VMware ~ Chris Pirillo

Parallels or VMware ~ Chris Pirillo — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:50:33 +0000

[...] Parallels or VMware [...]

By: scott

scott — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:12:04 +0000

VirtualBox from Sun is free, opensource and capable of cross platform function.
“Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.”

http://www.virtualbox.org/

By: kunal kakkar

kunal kakkar — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:05:53 +0000

its 2 good

By: CyberD

CyberD — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:30:11 +0000

As I would like to use my legacy hardware which HP does not provide drivers for Vista and especially 64-bit vista, is there any way to use a VM with say XP Pro or 2K in a vm in vista to run the hardware. My impression is that only the hardware drivers in the base OS can be used, not ones in the VM OS, to operate hardware.

Appreciate any help.

By: Tom Koschate

Tom Koschate — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:21:24 +0000

Unless you need to run 64-bit VMs, Sun’s VirtualBox is well worth a look. As an added advantage that neither VMware nor Parallels has, the latest release of VirtualBox allows the equivalent of Unity or Coherence (i.e. guest OS windows open on OSX desktop) for guest OSes beyond Windows. You can’t possibly beat the price, and many VMware appliances can be persuaded to run in VirtualBox.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:57:12 +0000

“The second reason is that it has been around as long as I can remember, much longer than Parallels. To me, longevity shows that a company knows what they are doing.”
More importantly, this means that the VMware virtualization engine is much more proven and it’s internals much more well-known than Parallels.

By: Mart

Mart — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:25:29 +0000

This is a stab in the dark but I’m trying to download the Parallels trial and it’s asking for a cd, can you help?

By: leftystrat

leftystrat — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:30:13 +0000

Greetings, GnomoBoss.

Given your focus, it’s not hard to figure out how you missed some others. VirtualBox, qemu, and MS Virtual PC are rough equivalents of the software you mentioned.

You can go a step up also, via open source software like Xen and KVM. While I don’t know the first thing about Macs, Xen and KVM are available for linux. Along with the commercial VMware Server, these run on `bare metal’ and provide a significant performance gain.

VMplayer and Qemu run on Win/lin (sorry, not sure about Mac). You’d be surprised how easy it is to create and run a different OS in the free VMplayer.

If you need a quick bit of isolation in Windows, you can run a program under SandboxIE. At very least it can help keep the internet nasties out of your OS when viewing questionable sites (not that WE would do anything like that).

Keep up the good work,

-leftystrat
Thermionic Emissions

By: wmmguru

wmmguru — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:20:57 +0000

I recently got a mac, my first one ever. i’m a former pc user and use a lot of pc based software on my old computer. A lot of the stuff i used on my pc has their mac counterparts. Eg. I mastered Windows Movie Maker (look at my user name) and i’m pretty good a Sony Acid (loop creation program). with mac there is iMovie and Garageband. I’m trying to get use to the new programs and its quiet frustrating when you have to relearn something. I found out about VMware from watching a vid chris did comparing it to Parallels. I think virtually machines are great. Booting into a different system just to open a program is to hectic. I haven’t tried VMWare fusion yet, but I’m definitely going to, SOON.

By: safarivsfirefox

safarivsfirefox — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:15:01 +0000

I think that one of the best things about VMware is that it can import other virtual machine and non-virtual machine partitions including BootCamp and Parallels. Saves a lot of space on the hard drive. (Note: I haven’t personally tried it with Parallels, but from what I’ve seen it works for those who switch from Parallels to VMware.)

I’ve also heard several people comment on the speed of VMware over Parallels, but I haven’t used them both enough to say much out of my experience.