Zac Bolan
continued from page 17
Parallels. Both applications are solid performers and a good choice for most virtualization needs.
Six of one, half dozen of the other
As the first major virtualization application
to hit the market, Parallels has become the
benchmark by which other VM apps are
measured. Whether or not this stature is
deserved is hotly debated across multiple
forums. I was an early adopter of Parallels,
starting with version 2, then through various betas to the current version.
At times, Parallels worked for me very
well, other times abysmally. Transitions between builds were generally smooth, as long
I religiously uninstalled the previous version and backed up my VM before installing the new build. Then with version 3,
I decided to use Parallels to access my Boot
Camp partition, which turned out to be a
huge mistake. After opening Boot Camp as
a VM, any “activated” application installed
in the partition, such as MS Office 2007 or
Adobe CS4, would require “reactivation”
BUSINESSCARDS/POSTCARDS
when accessed in Parallels creating significant licensing problems. Then, after several
crashes, I was no longer able to mount my
Boot Camp OS natively, instead restricted
to accessing it through Parallels. Unfortunately this entailed having to completely rebuild my Boot Camp partition.
Now at version 4, Parallels has matured
into an easy-to-use and stable virtualization
application that appears to have a small
edge over Fusion in the speed department.
However, during the buggy transition to
the latest version, Parallels alienated some
longtime users, subsequently bolstering
VMware’s customer base. In spite of all this,
I stuck with Parallels as my primary virtualizer mainly because of the time I had invested in building several virtual machines.
Even with the application’s newfound stability, however, I still cannot bring myself
to virtualize my Boot Camp partition...
once burned, twice shy!
Showing up late to the virtual party,
VMware appeared to learn from Parallels
early mistakes. The first release of Fusion
was well received as a stable and reliable
method either for building a new virtual
machine or utilizing a Boot Camp partition. With the release of version 2, Fusion
has narrowed the speed gap with Parallels
while maintaining its earlier reputation for
stability.
While the virtual machines will work immediately after installation, both Fusion
and Parallels Desktop provide their own
tool packages to install into the guest OS
providing better control over display,
mouse and file transfer functions.
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13*/5 ( 3"1)*$4
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The free alternative
Software: Sun Microsystems Virtualbox v2.2.0
MSRP: FREE (open-source license)
Download: www.virtualbox.org
Users on a tight budget with an occasional
need for Windows might want to consider
Sun Microsystems Virtualbox, a free alternative for virtualizing an x86 operating system. Virtualbox supports a surprising
number of OS variations and as with the
others, new virtual machines can be configured to the limits of the host computer.
Similar to the competitors, Virtualbox
uses an OS installation wizard to create virtual machines but requires a little more
tweaking during the OS installation
process. Instead of automatically guiding
the install through the minutia of Windows
settings, Virtualbox requires users to get
into the guts of the guest OS and the virtual
machine immediately to enable such things
as USB connectivity and sound. Unfortunately, Virtualbox does not support the importing of virtual machines from other
applications nor does it support making a
VM from your Boot Camp partition.
Once the irksome process of installing the
guest OS in a virtual machine is complete,
the Virtualbox VM experience is much the
same as Fusion or Parallels, albeit noticeably slower. As for features, the latest revision of Virtualbox supports 64-bit guest OS
virtual machines and can address up 16GB
of RAM.
The application even features a desktop
sharing feature similar to Fusion Unity and
Parallels Coherence modes. Sun, however
takes a different approach to combining
desktops, opting to put all the virtual OS
applications on a single layer which can be
toggled on or off, with the Mac desktop visible underneath. Virtualbox calls this
“seamless mode” – not as elegant as the
other VM alternatives, but not bad for the
price.
The need for speed
For most premedia and prepress users,
speed is usually the single primary determining factor when choosing any application, virtualization included. The Internet
is rife with numerous benchmarks and exhaustive and lively forum discussions comparing Fusion and Parallels. While each
application has its champions and detractors, the consensus seems to lean towards
Fusion for stability and Parallels for speed –
however, your mileage may vary.
As I alluded to earlier, I have been a Parallels user since the first public beta... at first
out of curiosity, then out of necessity as my
daily life demands I spend a good chunk of
time in Windows-land. For me, the speed
difference between Fusion and Parallels is
noticeable, but only if I am running something more taxing than MS Word or Excel.
For more mundane tasks the perceived
speed difference between the two applications is negligible. In fact, those brave
enough to run a game in a virtual machine
will find Fusion significantly faster at 3D
rendering and redraw. Were I to start building virtual machines today, I would be inclined to take a more serious look at
VMware Fusion.
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