PW6 on Ubuntu-10.04 stopped working when licence installed

[CliveHarris]

I need to run a Windows VM on an Ubuntu 10.04 machine and my old copy of Parallels Desktop 4 is no longer supported. The nearest current product arrears to be Parallels Workstation 6. Because Ubuntu-10.04 is not listed as an approved host for this, I installed a copy on a trial licence to check that it would work. The version I downloaded was 6.0.13950.714087. It installed without difficulty and correctly ran the VM from my earlier Parallels 4 installation. After trying it out for a couple of weeks, I paid for a licence key and ran the utility to register it. As part of this process, it attempted to update to version 6.0.13976.769982. This update failed and I was left with a non-working VM.
I then un-installed Parallels Workstation and attempted to re-install the earlier version. This also failed. From the log file, it appeared to fail when it tried to start the parallels daemon, giving the following error message: "Error inserting prl_vtdhook (/lib/modules/2.6.32-41-generic/extra/parallels/prl_vtdhook.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter".
Why should my copy of Parallels Workstation stop working when I install the licence?
I need to work from an LTS version of Ubuntu, and I don't want to try 12.04 yet, which leaves me with 10.04, so can anyone suggest how to get PW6 working again.
Thanks

 

[Robertjm]

Was there a kernel update in the interim?

I've found that if Ubuntu does a kernel update, PW6 will not launch when I use the current kernel.

When you reboot your system, you should have a listing of all installed kernels (in ubuntu 12.04 there's a "previous kernels" option in grub).

Try booting your computer with a previous kernel, and then try to launch PW6 to see if that fixes the issue. I've taken to memorizing which kernel I installed with, and then load that one at launch if I need to get into PW6. Is that a viable workaround? In the long run, certainly not, but at least it gave me a workaround until I find a more permanent solution.

Unfortunately, Parallels' support for the Linux version has never been robust, and so you may be hard pressed to get an official response from someone at the company. Hopefully, this helps your problem, even if only temporarily.

Good luck!!

Robert

 

[CliveHarris]

RE:Was there a kernel update in the interim?

Hi Robert,
Thanks for your suggestion, and sorry about my delay in replying - for some reason the forum wouldn't let me login for the last couple of days.

It is possible that there was a kernel update at around the time I registered the licence. It seems strange that the action of registering the licence would be enough on its own to stop it working. I remember there were a number of security updates at around that time, and they may have included the kernel.

I remember this was a problem with my earlier Parallels Desktop installation, but it usually detected the new kernel and automatically updated the kernel modules the first time I tried to start it - that was until Ubuntu 10.04 came along, when the update always failed without a great deal of manual "hacking".

I would have thought that Parallels Workstation would have had the same capabilities. However, since Ubuntu-10.04 is not "officially" supported, it may be that kernel support is intermittent - it compiles successfully for some kernel versions but not others.

I have to say I am very disappointed with Parallels support for Linux. The fix to get Parallels Desktop working with Ubuntu-10.04 would have been very easy for them to implement, but very difficult for the user to do. Last time I checked, Parallels Workstation was not "officially" supported for any LTS version of Ubuntu. They may have added 12.04 since I last looked, but I have reasons for sticking with 10.04 for as long as possible.

I may be able to step back to the earlier kernel, but this will probably cause problems with other programs - anything that has its own kernel modules is likely to be upset. I suppose I'll have to start using different virtualisation tools if Parallels can't get its act together with Linux. Pity really, I like to support commercial companies who make an effort to write software for Linux.