Recently there has been a lot of buzz around virtualization of operating systems. In the past I have never really seen the point of virtualization for myself, but after listening to a few podcasts on the subject and reading quite a lot of information about it on the web, this technology is looking more useful all the time. It can be used for anything from running Windows apps in Linux, having a secure sand box operating system to test out new software, to trying out new operating systems before installing them.

So the first thing I wanted to do was download one of the popular virtualization packages and give it a spin. There appear to be two main products out there at the moment, VMWare and Parallels. VMWare is the grand-daddy of them all, and has been around forever, and Parallels is the relatively new kid on the block. Parallels has been getting a lot of press recently with it's Mac line of products so I thought I would start with that and see how it performs in Linux.

Installation

To start with I just went to the parallels website, where I registered for a trial activation key, and downloaded deb package the beta version of Parallels workstation 2.2. They also have RPM, TGZ, and Gentoo ebuilds as well as a Windows EXE just in case.

The deb install package worked with Ubuntu Dapper just fine. After getting the package installed I ran the parallels-config program. At first I had a little problem running Parallels configuration because I did not have the current source headers for the version of the Linux kernel I was running. That was quickly fixed with "sudo apt-get install linux-headers" and I was off again.

After fixing the missing headers problem the parallels-config command ran without a hitch and said that I could now run parallels. The first time starting up Parallels I got a couple of X Windows warning messages in the console, but the program still started up.

With everything else installed the rest of the setup is pretty stright forward. This is my first experience with any VM software, and I had no trouble figuring out what I had to do to get it working. This is a good sign that Parallels has a pretty decent and easy to use UI.

Setting up a new Virtual Machine

With parallels up and running I got started creating a new Virtual Machine (VM). For testing this for the first time I decided to go with Parallels default settings and see how it turns out. It created a system with 256MB of ram, a floppy drive, 8GB hard disk, DVD-Rom, Network Adapter, Sound, and a USB controller. Everything a system needs, well maybe except for the RAM which is a little stingy for a modern GUI based operating system.

After entering my trial activation key I started up the new VM, popped in my Ubuntu DVD and set it off. I know it seems a little odd installing Ubuntu on Ubuntu, but the main reason I wanted to try virtualization was to have a test bed for my main system where I could test new software before applying it to my main OS.

For example, the Ubuntu developers just released a beta version of Upstart, a new system boot loader. I do not want to hose my main system by installing a untested low level application on it. So I will try it out on an identical setup in a virtual machine. If anything goes badly I can just delete the VM.

So far Parallels has been impressive, everything from the installation and configuration of Parallels itself to the creation of a new virtual machine has been simple. As I write this Ubuntu is installing in a window on my other workspace just as it would on any system.

Final Words

With the system installed I am now going to spend a little time messing around with the program, and see how it works out. I am hoping to give VMWare a try at a later time, and maybe compare how well Parallels and VMWare run on my new Core 2 Duo system (when I actually get the thing) compared to my current AthlonXP system.