|
VMWare Fusion
|
|
|
|
Here at Computer Buzz Labs in north Dallas, we put a lot of hardware and software through their paces. The last couple of years or so, much of that software has consisted of what we call "alternative operating systems"--anything other than Windows or Mac OS X. We usually assign one OS to a single computer and let it take over the entire hard disk during the evaluation tests.
But recently we think we've come up with a better idea. It involves the humble Apple Mac Mini and some highly innovative software from VMware and Parallels. These two software publishers have come up with somewhat dissimilar methods of letting us install a couple--or a couple of dozen--full blown operating systems on a hard disk that actually is under the control of Mac OS X.
It all started a couple of years ago when Apple Computer dumped the PowerPC chip and began using Intel chips exclusively in their Mac boxes. Shortly thereafter, Apple started including a little program called Boot Camp with every Mac they sold. Boot Camp allows you run Microsoft Windows on your Intel-based Mac. It's not as convenient as it could be, because you can't run Windows and the Mac OS concurrently. You have to decide as your Mac is booting up every time whether you're going to boot into Windows or OS X. And, of course, you have to bring your own copy of Windows along; Steve Jobs is not about to go around handing out free copies of Bill Gates' software.
Within a few weeks of Apple's launch of Boot Camp, Switzerland-based Parallels, Inc came out with Parallels Desktop for Mac ("PDM" or "Parallels" for short). PDM was originally touted as an improvement over Boot Camp that would let you run Windows on a Mac simultaneously and side by side with the Mac OS. Not a bad idea for Apple-heads who needed to occasionally run a Windows app but didn't want to shell out for a whole nuther computer. Oh, and by the way, Windows was not the only other OS you could run on your Mac using Parallels. Most versions of Linux would run too, as would Solaris and various versions of BSD Unix. All of a sudden, this virtualization thing was getting interesting.
Quickly thereafter, VMware Inc (NYSE: VMW), a Palo Alto-based company founded in 1998, got into the act with their Fusion program. Like Parallels, Fusion is a virtualization app that allows Mac users to run Windows side by side with OS X. And like Parallels, Fusion can also accommodate "guest" operating systems like Linux and BSD.
Computer Buzz purchased the most recent available versions of Parallels (3.0) and Fusion (2.0). We were not all that interested in the way they run Windows; Windows runs reasonably well on both of them, and other evaluation teams have flogged that old horse to death. We wanted to see how PDM and Fusion could handle the ever-more-sophisticated Linux and Unix distributions that are coming out daily (and almost hourly).
|
|
|
|
