2009/04/24
Labels: parallels, desktop, vm, windows, gos, xubuntu, linux, virtualisation
If you need to run multiple operating systems in virtual machines on your Apple Mac, I highly recommend Parallels Desktop...
For $79 USD, Parallels Desktop makes creating, installing and running virtual machines a trivial task - so trivial even I could do it without reading any instructions!
To create a VM, pop in the installation CD (or use an ISO disk image) for your desired operating system (eg. Windows install disc) and create a new virtual machine with it. It's really that simple!
So far, I've installed Windows XP (for testing websites in IE6), gOS and xubuntu (two flavours of Linux to play with). It's quite strange seeing entire operating systems running happily on my Mac desktop:
One of Parallels most awesome features is it's ability to run Windows in "coherence" mode. It's probably easier to explain with a screen shot (click to zoom):
Yep, that's right, you can run Windows apps on your Mac desktop as if they were just normal Mac apps! You can also share folders between the Mac and other operating systems and you can even share the clipboard between Windows and the Mac!
For more info, head over to the Parallels Desktop website, they've got a video tour on there which shows Parallels in action.
