Are Any CURRENT Linux Distros Supported?

I am growing disappointed in Parallels 5 for the Mac as a Linux platform.

I have tried to install several of the most popular Linx distros in their current versions:

Fedora 13
Mandriva Spring 2010
Ubuntu 10.04
and
Open SuSE 11.3

So far as I can determine, none of these is currently supported by Parallels. Most of the distro web sites will not allow the download of their older Linux versions. I have not been able to install Parallels Tools into any of them.

Any suggestions?

Seems not particularly honest for Parallels to claim Linux support, but not trouble themselves to support any of these current versions.

What am I missing?

 

I have successfully installed Ubuntu 10.04 (both 32- and 64-bit), Mint 9 (32- and 64-bit) CentOS 5.5 as well as Chrome OS and the Oracle 10g Appliance.

Macbook Pro, 10.6.4, Parallels 5.0.9370, 4GB, 500 GB HDD.

I simply downloaded the .ISO images and saved them to disk. I "mount" the one I wish when I build the VM.

 

I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit) from a burned CD of the .ISO using Parallels and Boot Camp and used both in Parallels.

I've installed Parallels Tools in both as well.

1) Virtual Machine -> Install Parallels Tools -> OK. This mounts the Parallels Tools virtual CD and a Parallels Tools - File Browser window appears.
2) Ubuntu -> Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal
3) sudo su
4) Drag the install file from the Parallels Tools - File Browser to the Terminal window, click on the Terminal window, and press enter in Terminal to run the script.
5) Use the mouse to click on the buttons or use the keyboard.
6) Wait as it installs.
7) Press the reboot button. When you reboot, the tools will be working.

 

I'm finding that Fedora 12 and 13, i386, are currently not playing nicely with Parallels, and neither is RHEL6 Beta2. I know that F12 at least used to install without problem, so I'll try and roll Parallels back (good thing I save the .dmg's) one step to see if that helps.

If it helps anything, RHEL5, RHEL4, Debian 5 as well as Debian Testing install without any problem. It may well be a Linux kernel thing that is causing the problems with the current Parallels. (Will try and deduce if that is the case.)

/Anders

 

Stepped back from Parallels Desktop 5.0.9370 to 5.0.9310 and tried a F13 netinst again, but it conks out at the same place, trying to retreive the repomd.xml from the network. I'm starting to think that this is Fedora infrastructure issues, but I can't prove it. I'll post again when I know more.

/Anders

 

Several distros Install without Parallels Tools, none with it

I have also been able to install several of the current distros using Parallels 5.0, but none will install Parallel Tools for Linux.

Several users are correct that you can install these distros without Parallels Tools, but they do not run normally, and do not run well. They variously miss sound, different graphics modes, mouse configurations, in essence all of the finer points that these distros are capable of.

As I mentioned in my first post, several of the older distros will work and use parallels tools just fine.

But so far as I can determine, Parallels is not capable of supporting any CURRENT distro version of Linux with the support of Parallels Tools.

If Parallels is going to assert that it support the Linux OS, it should fully support the CURRENT versions of the various distros which are widely available for download, not some older versions.

 

Are you saying that Ubuntu 10.04 is not Liniux or current or that I didn't get Parallels Tools running correctly?

Can you describe in more detail the specific problems you see when you try to install Parallels Tools? Maybe a screen shot of displayed errors? The Parallels Tools installer is a shell script. If there's a problem with your distro, you can modify the shell script to work with it.

Can you tell if it's able to retrieve other files from the network? Check your Network Adapter settings for the virtual machine. To prove it's an infrastructure issue, install it on a Boot Camp partition or PC.

 

Ubuntu 10.04, uniquely of the Distros, can install Parallels Tools!

My sincere apologies to Parallels.

I was mistaken, but only in the case of Ubuntu 10.04, which is the current Ubuntu Distro.

I tried to install it unsuccessfully initially, but was able to go back after the above post, and did finally succeed with Parallels Tools in this Distro.

But it is the only distro where I have met with success in installing Parallels Tools.

The whole point here is to hope that Parallels will fulfill their responsibilities, and their advertising claims, and update Parallels Tools for Parallels 5.0 so that it can run the current versions of Linux.

My personal Linux preference is for SuSE 11.3, but Ubuntu is a fine Linux version, and one of the more popular ones. I would hope that Fedora and Mandriva users would also be able to expect reasonable support.

Thanks....

 

The following is a detailed description of a specific problem:

I installed openSUSE 11.3 and Fedora 13 in Parallels. I tried installing Parallels Tools. They both failed with an error and told me to refer to the /var/log/parallels-tools-install.log file.

The log files ended with something like this:

Code:

X server: xorg, v1.8.0
Install X modules from directory: .1.8
System X modules are placed in /usr/lib/xorg/modules
Error: there is no X modules for this version of X server

Ubuntu completes successfully and has a log that contains the following:

Code:

X server: xorg, v1.7.6
Install X modules from directory: .1.7
System X modules are placed in /usr/lib/xorg/modules
X server config: /etc/X11/xorg.conf (doesn't exist)
Configuring X server (xorg, 1.7)

I found that error string in the install-tools.sh file located on the Parallels Tools iso which can be found at /Library/Parallels/Tools/prl-tools-lin.iso.

The directory refers to the ones found in the prltools.tar.gz or prltools.x64.tar.gz:

Code:

xorg.1.2
xorg.1.3
xorg.1.4
xorg.1.4.99
xorg.1.5
xorg.1.6
xorg.1.7
xorg.6.7
xorg.6.8
xorg.6.8.99
xorg.6.9
xorg.7.0
xorg.7.1
xorg.7.1.99
xorg.7.2
xorg.7.3
xorg.7.4
xorg.7.5

Obviously the Parallels Tools doesn't include an xorg1.8 directory for xorg v1.8.0 yet. For this xorg error, I suppose the Parallels Tools iso could be changed to use the 1.7 version in this case but I'm not going to try it. The files are binary executable files which Parallels may need to recompile for us since no source code is provided.

It seems, from looking at the contents of prl-tools-lin.iso, that every new kernel or xorg version needs a new set of files created for them which takes time. Perhaps Parallels Tools updates should be made on a different schedule than Parallels Desktop updates so that users can get the Tools in a more timely manner...

 

It's not infrastructure, I've tested with a physical system and both F12 and F13 (media burned from the .iso's that I'm using to install the Parallels VM with) installs with exactly the same options. So, it's Parallels that is struggling.

As for setup - shared networking as well as host only are configured in the same way, only they have different IP ranges. They provide a DHCP server. What I've seen is that the installer lets me get as far as configuring up the disks and committing that, but then it goes on to networking and it configures the network (Alt-F4 shows me that it's picked up IP and dhcp config, so that's fine) but when it comes to retreive the repodata from the network, that's when it conks out.

I get warnings on F3 console, saying six lines about "Repo Fedora 13" and that because the data contains either -source or -debuginfo, the repos are excluded. The requester I end up with gives me an option to quit the installer (reboot), edit the repo string (don't work in text installer) or retry (which ends up trying the same thing that's failing, over and over).

I'll have a poke at Seth Vidal about this or #anaconda on FreeNode, as I don't think this is correct. Thing is, F12 conks out as well, and I *know* I have installed that fine before. I've even reinstalled Parallels, just to ensure that is not it, but no avail.

 

F11 installs, but F12 or later does not. I've filed BZ#622590 with fp.o and spoken to clumens, pjones and bcl about this. I'm also going to test full DVD installs of F12 and F13, but need to jigdo them first. Seems this particular problem is not the same as the OP's however (although I did observe problems installing Parallels Tools in Debian Testing).

 

I couldn't manage to install the Parallels tools in latest Arch. It failed because the code still calls some functions which have been renamed in May. I'd say that's pretty slow update schedule, makes Parallels Desktop unusable for a programmer who needs latest kernels. Fusion and Virtualbox tools work just fine, which is a shame because Parellels appear to be so much faster. It seems that their Tools people lag behind the main development team!

 

Fedora 12 x86-64 worked for me...

I didn't have any problems installing Fedora 12 x86-64 on an SMP (2-core) virtual machine. The original install was a few months ago, but it's still running under latest Fedora, Parallels Desktop, and OSX updates.

There have been a few minor issues -- the DHCP problem I posted about recently, and 'prlcc' dies occasionally with a core dump. The latter is fixed with a simple restart of that program, and I get the dynamic resolution and cut-and-paste support back.

Hope this helps!

(Having said all that, I do hope that the Tools team gets on the ball; I would like to feel that they're keeping the tools up-to-date w.r.t. current releases, and Fedora 13 has been out for a while now.)

 

The Parallels Tools that comes with Parallels Desktop 6 works with OpenSUSE 11.3 and Fedora 13.