Apple Boot Camp and Parallels Workstation
The last two days have been instrumental for Intel Mac power users, thanks to Apple Boot Camp and Parallels Workstation. While Apple may be getting the media attention for Boot Camp, for me it’s far less interesting than Parallels’ announcement.
I learned about Apple’s release of Boot Camp from the show floor of LinuxWorld Boston. William Hurley (”whurley“), the CTO of the open source company Qlusters, called me and told me to check out Apple’s site. Down below the big advert for the iPod Boom Box was a link to Boot Camp - Apple had finally embraced a Windows installation solution for Intel Macs. There were rumors all week about virtualization technology in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 release. Alas, Boot Camp is the virtualization solution we had hoped for, and may actually be a sign that virtualization is not in the cards for Apple (at least anytime soon). Boot Camp does allow for the installation of Windows XP on Intel Macs, but you have to boot into Windows XP, not run Windows XP within Mac OS X. This is not ideal for me, but I’d take the support anyway.
I was already planning to install the WinOnMac solution - the outcome of a hacker contest to boot Windows XP on an Intel Mac. During the contest period, the prize money for the winning solution passed the $12,000 mark. The only problem was that the installation process was complex - something like 40+ steps, and I had to send my MacBook Pro back to Apple for repairs. I don’t think they would have appreciated a boot loader menu while diagnosing the computer at the repair center.
whurley and I looked around for a Windows XP installation CD to have our own “Boot Camp install party” during LinuxWorld. Surprise, surprise - Windows XP installation CDs are not easy to find at a Linux conference. There’s something amusing about guys getting excited about installing Windows on a Mac at LinuxWorld.
The following day, my brother emailed me a link to Parallels. I had heard a few days prior that Parallels was planning to release a Mac Intel version of their virtualization product. Rumors were rampant that VMWare was planning an Intel Mac release, as well. I didn’t think much of the link to Parallels, as I assumed it was just a heads-up on the future release, which I knew already. Later in the day, a friend (Jeb Bolding), IM’ed me and asked if I had seen the video of Parallels running on an Intel Mac. I had not. I assumed it was an early preview from the developers, but Jeb proceeded to tell me that a public beta had been released. Woah. Parallels must have been reacting to Apple’s release, and did not want to miss out on the media hype.
I am typing this blog entry on the airplane from Boston to Dallas, and am almost done with an installation of Fedora Core 5 on my MacBook Pro. Performance, at least during the installation process, is screaming (update: Fedora Core 5 performance on my MacBook Pro was better than on my PC!). This is nothing like virtualization I’ve ever seen on the Mac before. Virtual PC on my PowerMac was slow, QEMU (in its current incarnation) was even slower. MacTel by the shady OpenOSX company, known for its lack of attribution when repackaging the Fink project codebase for resale (can you say ‘open source license violation’?), took over eight hours to install Windows XP on my kids’ Intel iMac. I gave up after the early attempts in February.
I plan to install Windows XP in the next few days. From what I saw of the video, performance is fantastic.
The reality is, there are times when we need to run Windows applications. For some, this is Outlook, for others it’s Internet Explorer. For me, it’s the need to have a Windows testbed for open source projects. I don’t want two computers. I am highly mobile, and am dependent upon my MacBook Pro. If it doesn’t work on my MacBook Pro, then I’m not going to use it. With Parallels Workstation, Linux and Windows will have a place on my computer…finally. In fact, multiple Linux installations.
PS: Virtualization is just one step closer to my ultimate goal - to launch Windows and Linux application within the Mac OS X Finder. The Darwine project is aiming to do this. Until Darwine is consumer-ready, I’ll be using Parallels Workstation. That is, unless Apple actually does include virtualization technology in Mac OS X 10.5. I have my doubts now.
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