Fedora Core Kernel Compatibility

[chazza]

I'm looking to purchase Parallels for Linux but I've not used it before. I have used VMWare for a number of years.

One of the real annoyances with VMWare was that every time you upgraded the kernel for security reasons or otherwise, then the VMWare software would require a reinstall or be just plain broke until someone decided to do something about it.

Is this the same situation with Parallels ?

I see there is a recommended host version of Fedora Core 4 with a particular kernel, is this the only supported kernel .... or will it work on later versions ? Are installs on later versions still supported?

Is it possible to test Parallels on a FC5 Guest OS with latest kernel on FC Host to see if there are any issues with upgrading ? Is this a valid technique ?

 

[tgrogan]

chazza,

you have discovered the on-going problem with emulators/virtualizers - the never ending chain of 'must have' kernel upgrades. if you are dependent on using the latest kernel available, then you must absorb the overhead necessary for your choice. you do have a good idea to test them under a known working version before upgrading - but that only tests guest compatibility which is much simpler than host compatibility. you will find that all virtualization products require compiling against the installed kernel and therefore reinstallation. none of them require rebuilding guest images, so it is just a minor annoyance.

 

[constant]

.
I have completed every online update of the kernel that SuSE have offered for 10.0 and Parallels continues to work perfectly.
.

 

[chazza]

Thanks to all for your replies. Ok, sort of the answers I half expected, the info on Suse is interesting, not normally a distro I'd consider. Cheers.