Parallels Developers PLEASE Respond to thisl

PLEASE answer this question for us once and for all:

DO YOU EVER intend to allow booting from native linux partitions? Or is XP+Bootcamp the ONLY scenario you intend to support?

With some hacking it's quite obvious parallels works JUST FINE booting linux from a native partition if you manage to fool it into thinking it's XP under Bootcamp, but with a triple boot setup your product just refuses to do anything.

Can you fix this? Will you fix this? Am I wasting my time even asking for it?

I know many people want to know the answer to this and so far there hasn't been any response from you guys on this matter directly as far as I can tell...

 

Have you sent this to beta@parallels.com?

 

Not yet, but then that wouldn't answer the question for everyone to see. And I see alot of people asking the question

 

the "Wish list" subforum might have been a better place to ask

 

I was under the impression the wishlist was for suggestions not questions. This is the forum for support questions, right? This is a question of future support...

 

"Parallels Support Forum > Technical Discussions > Parallels Desktop for Mac"

Maybe my logic is just too radically different, but it made sense to me to post it here. (and to likewise not cripple the product with needless fixing to XP only)

If this thread belongs in the wishlist subforum, perhaps a moderator might be kind enough to relocate it for me (and to kindly see that it gets answered).

Ta.

 

And send it to beta@parallels.com -- that will MAKE CERTAIN that the developers actually do see and read the note.

 

Sent. Cheers.
If devs do read this thread though it would be nice for everyone else if you could respond here aswell as (or instead of) to my email.

Ta.

 

If they don't then post their reply to you and, if they don't reply to you at all, post that as well so we all know what's happening. I've had no problems with getting replies from the Parallels team.

 

Ok, sure thing.

 

I allready lost all my hope the parallels crew will do more on Linux support. Maybe you can you explain your hacking in more detail.

 

Response from the Parallels devs I received today:


"Hello,

Thank you for asking.

Yes, we do have plans to support Linux partitions in the near future as the feature proven to
be highly demanded. Unfirtunately, I can't give you any timeframes yet.

Best,
Tims"


So, keep your hopes up! And now I will politely shut my yap and sit back and wait

mipmip: in a previous post titled "Why is bootcamp option still grayed out? Why is it still called bootcamp?" I stated how a typical triple boot setup ends up marking both the xp and linux partitions with the same GUID in the GPT, and how to work around this by changing the linux entry's GUID to the linux-reserved type GUID. Once this is done Parallels will once again recognize the XP partition. To get Parallels to boot the linux partition instead of the XP one, swap the GUIDs of the xp and linux entry in the GPT (after changing them to be non-identical to eachother of course). This will cause Parallels to think the linux partition is a bootcamp XP partition. Of course this is in no way elegant or even reccomended for casual use, but it works if you're up to speed with using dd to write to block devices. This may also interfere with bootcamp itself and most likely the bootcamp startup disk tools, but they're not really any concern to me so I haven't really worried about testing them after making such changes, and booting either partition via rEFIt seems to work just fine.

 

If you've seen this goal in a brochure then it is on their list of things to do. If not then you might want to post your interest in the forum's wishlist area. I have not personally seen any suggestion that suggests this is on their radar and I'm pretty much ok with that because it is not something I give a rip about. I'd much rather see native support of Solaris ZFS or UFS but I don't think for the tiniest moment that is going to happen. What they have done to date is most excellent and commendable.

 

Er, Ok. Did you see my post just before yours that mentions a response from them directly that does indicate intent to support this in the future?
Also, you do realize that the raw partition support I'm talking about with all this is also essential for supporting of your solaris using any filesystem? Or any other OS besides XP for that matter?

I do agree, the work done so far is great. My question was just asking how much greater it aspires to become. And now we have our answer.

 

guess we do differ... as this is something the product doest do yet, and you are asking when it will, to me, thats a wish.. you wish it would do native linux booting...

ho hum

 

It was a question not a suggestion. The suggestion has already been made many times. There's a difference between a suggestion and a question, don't you agree? But anyway, we're just splitting hairs now aren't we?

Most if not all other product support forums I've used have had it so the wishlist is just that, a place to register interest or desires, not for asking questions. If you want to ask questions, you use the support forum not the wishlist.

Also, what is it with all you 'Senior Members' with 100+ posts always posting comments and stuff that are usually non-helpful or relevant to the original posts? I suppose you need to do that to get your 100+ posts right? I appreciate all your opinions but really you're kind of flogging a dead horse now on this one thread.

 

exxcuse me, but i think you'll find my post are nothign but helpful, its just tiring seeing the same question asked over and over.. If Parallels were going to comment, they would have done so on one of the many other theads on this, as youve mentioned, there are.

I do object to you turning this into a personal insult... I do believe in other threads, Ive tried to help you as well... quit whining.

 

I didn't mean to turn it into a personal insult, sorry, but, the thing is they _did_ respond, and then i forwarded the response, and now they even released an updated beta with provisions for making this happen. It's not a whinge, I just think we've gotten our wires crossed here somewhere and misread one another.

 

is this thread still being watched or is it dead?

Still very interested in booting parralels machines from seperate efi partitions (ext2/ext3/ fat 32 /ntfs)

Any word form the devs?

 

.
They'll do it, with no time commitment for availability. That's the word from the devs.
.