Best/easiest version of Linux for Parallels

B

bradleyland

Bit poster
In your experience, what is the easiest version of Linux to get working under Parallels. I'd like Gnome based distro, but KDE will do. I've been trying to get Ubuntu working (unsuccessfully) for a couple of weeks now. I've tried both 6.10 and now 7.04. I can get 6.10 into the installatino phase, but it dies during the install process, and I'm not sure why. I just want something I can download an ISO for, run the installer under Parallels, and begin using.
 
Thanks oneway, I've kind of given up on running Ubuntu under parallels. I tried the suggestions listed in that thread, and I got Ubuntu to boot once, but on subsequent boots, I get a black screen. I'd rather go with a distro that installs in a more straight forward way. Any suggestions?
 
I feel your pain...Actually, I am in a similar situation. After 24 hours of issues, I'm ready to admit the desire to simply move on, yet I'm too obstinate to concede that it's not working out. Normally, I thrive on these type of "problem-solving" issues, but in this case, I have absolutely zero Linux experience and I'm not knowledgable in any sense when it comes to terminals, command-lines, etc. I suppose you'd call me an "average computer user." I was hoping that Ubuntu would be the "cross-over" distro that wouldn't intimidate upon contact.

In any event, if you come across anything that seems appealing, do give a shout.
 
A friend of mine suggested downloading one of the pre-built images for Parallels off of a bittorrent website. Seems like a good idea. I've got one downloading now.
 
That's a good idea. But Ubuntu 7.04 installed without trouble on my MacBook. The only trick to installing is that you have to tell Parallels that you're installing Solaris or else you can't boot from the iso file. After it's installed, you can change the VM type to Other Linux 2.6.

If you can't get it to boot after the first time, you've probably got the VM configuration set to boot from the CD-ROM first. Change that to boot from the hard disk and you'll be OK.

Chris
 
I've had good luck (i.e. easy for my limited cranial capacity) with Fedora Core 6. The only challenge was the default screen size was about as big as Rhode Island, and dribbled off my MBP's screen. Not too hard to fix, and everything else was pretty simple. Once FC is on, you have the benefit of a pretty widely known and supported distro, quite a bit of knowledge, and quite a few apps pre-compiled. Good luck!
 
Why Linux when you have BSD anyway?

bradleyland said:
In your experience, what is the easiest version of Linux to get working under Parallels. I'd like Gnome based distro, but KDE will do. I've been trying to get Ubuntu working (unsuccessfully) for a couple of weeks now. I've tried both 6.10 and now 7.04. I can get 6.10 into the installatino phase, but it dies during the install process, and I'm not sure why. I just want something I can download an ISO for, run the installer under Parallels, and begin using.
Click to expand...
Just curious: Why do you want Linux on your Mac when you have FreeBSD UNIX and the Mach 3 kernel available, including X11?
 
Ok, update. I was having an additional issue where none of my Virtual Machines would boot from an ISO image, so I trashed everything Parallels related except my Windows XP virtual machine and re-downloaded. 7.04 booted from the ISO under the machine type Solaris 10 and I'm off and running. The odd part is, I was able to boot from an actual 7.04 CD before, but the install would hang during the install. IIRC, it was during the chipset configuration, or something along those lines. Everything is working fine now though.
 
marc.heusser said:
Just curious: Why do you want Linux on your Mac when you have FreeBSD UNIX and the Mach 3 kernel available, including X11?
Click to expand...
Having FreeBSD underneath OS X is great! That's what turned me on to Linux in general. I've got a couple friends and family members who didn't have a computer until about a year ago. Their usage is extremely light, so I didn't want them to go spend $1000 on a computer. I set them both up with a couple retired P4 1.3 GHz 512MB systems running Ubuntu. When they call for help, I have a hard time walking them through certain things, because I'm not sitting here looking at it. I know that seems like a lame reason to use up a few gigs on your hard drive, but one is my fiance's grandfather, who is very dear to me and he loves being able to get online and search to his hearts content :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top