Parallels Workstation 2.0 has been released. From the press release: “After months of focused research, development and testing, Parallels today announced the immediate general availability of Parallels Workstation 2.0, the world’s first hypervisor-powered desktop virtualization solution.”
… I’d rather see Svista’s Virtual Station releasing their never-coming FreeBSD version.
I’d rather see Svista’s Virtual Station releasing their never-coming FreeBSD version
Serenity is in a world of hurt, since their product was based on the technology in Parallels. They are struggling to find a new engine to replace it (see their forums page).
Pretty cool that they’re offering it at $49…that’s far and away the most reasonable price of any desktop virtualization solution I’ve seen. I tried beta4 and it ran very well, am looking forward to trying GA. Anyone else try beta4 or GA?
PS – I emailed back and forth with Parallels support during beta4, and they said that they might be offering FreeBSD primary OS in the future.
Anyone else try beta4 or GA?
It rocks for me, I have been using it for production windows coding on Linux for months. The best things is not just that it is $49, but that you get BOTH the Windows and Linux versions for this price. Yeeehaw!
“The best things is not just that it is $49, but that you get BOTH the Windows and Linux versions for this price.”
True, you can download them both but can only use one or the other. The license key to activate the second platform will cost another $49. Just learned that as I installed the Linux version after the windows version, and the program will not activate and gives a message about the license being tied.
I have just downloaded Parallels Workstation 2.0, and it feels really fast. Especially compared to Win4Lin Pro. This could be a killer-VM at the current price.
I have a question about the Parallels VM. I was able to install both win98SE and win2k on seperate vm’s. However I was unable to load video drivers for either one. When I would install the 865G video drivers on both, it would ask me to reboot, and when i did i would get the blue screen each time and have to reboot. I have an aopen motherboard with a 865G intel video. Ya think all these people having luck with it was just using the stock installed driver? Its really not much use to me with 16 colors and 640 x 480 resolution. I googled for an answer, but could find none .. nor any info on their web site .. nor any forums..oh.. i suppose i should say im using suse 10 as the host.. and the guest os’es was the two windows versions.
For Win2000 you should install Parallels Tools (menu VM->Install Parallels Tools). For Win98 you should connect CD-ROM image vmtools.iso (in Parallels dir in host OS) and find special video drivers on CD in guest.
Note that inside VM you have some generic VESA video card, not your host one.
On win98SE you can install video-driver provided on their “tools.iso” – there is such topic in their documentation.
Seems it’s looks like VMWare, what’s the different?
“Seems it’s looks like VMWare, what’s the different?”
The biggest difference is the price. For download VMWare Workstation is $189 full version and upgrade is $99. Parallels workstation is $49 for full version download. So the difference is $140 or $50. The main thing they have going is affordability. These prices are US Dollars.
Obviosuly I don’t need it or I’d know. But what would you do with multiple desktop systems that can be worth $49?
The only things that comes to my mind is:
1. Test unstable systems
2. Multiseat setup (which can be done within one xserver now a days)
I have used GNU/Linux since 1994, but I regularly have to use Windows applications for homework. Some people would say that you could just reboot into Windows, but my workflow is much better when I can use a UNIX-like system, and integrate Windows programs when needed. I like CrossOver Office for this reason, but it does not run all applications (yet).
Besides that it is pretty handy for development, clean build environments, etc.
Can you DnD files between the two desktops?
Can you DnD files between the two desktops?
No, but I just use samba to share things (mount a host folder on the guest image as a drive). More annoying is the lack of clipboard cut-n-paste. I imagine they will add that eventually. Currently I use a text file that both can access.
Obviosuly I don’t need it or I’d know. But what would you do with multiple desktop systems that can be worth $49?
1. Develop Windows apps while using Linux as my base OS (stability).
2. Create test images for deployment (to refresh the test image, just copy it over again)
3. Setup separate development environments (VB6, VS.Net 2003, VS.NET 2005, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005).
4. Test out new OS’s, like Solaris, NetBSD, etc
5. Run Legacy apps that require DOS, Win 3.1 or Windows 9X that won’t run on XP.
6. Create server images for Postgresql, Mysql, Oracle without installing them on you hard drive.
Etc, etc, etc!!
Thanks Obram, that did the trick. Obviously, I’m fairly new to the world of VM so I’m getting my feet wet here a bit. After uninstalling the Parallels, I did an install of VMware, and it solved my problem by giving me a warning that I could get better screen color and resolution by installing the VM ware tools, which lit the bulb that I had saw that Parallels had the same thing.
And like DrillSgt, I would pay 49 dollars for the Parallels vm if it works as well as the VMware, but its not worth 189 dollars to me.
what’s the performance of parallel vms compared to vmware?
the hardware emulated by paralle according to their website is either PII or Duron, which is extremely slow compared to todays machines?
I only need it to run very few, rarely used windows programs; which are generic office applications; anyone noticed is issues with the graphics and responsiveness of the apps running in VM?
I find Parallels very speedy for this genre of programs, certainly comparable to Vmware (and many times faster than Win4lin Pro). I am using it to develop Visual Studio .NET applications with SQL Server 2000 on XP Pro. Plenty speedy for me. Just make sure you have at least 1GB of ram (or more) so you can give at least 512MB to the virtual session.
The instruction code emulated is the same as a P II or Duron, but that doesn’t mean it’s exactly like one of those. The emulation speed is dependent on your own cpu, so it’ll be like running the virtual machine on a P II or Duron 7GHz (exaggeration) if you have an Athlon/Opteron/P4 etc.
What does it have in the way of DirectX support?