I use Parallels on my MacBook Pro 15″, and had a Ubuntu Desktop Feisty Fawn 7.04 iso CD laying around from a previous installation, so why not install it on my MacBook Pro?
It’s not a trivial install because of Parallels bugs in cooperating with linux …
So I used the illustrated link on simplehelp.net, except I installed from the CD instead of an iso file.
By default Ubuntu chooses 1024×768 as the maximum screen resolution, so I opened a terminal window in Ubuntu and added modes 1440×900 and 1280×768 with:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
I configured a 7 GB hard drive partition which ended up 32% full, and 512 MB RAM, about half in use – so 256 MB is fine for playing around and 384 MB would be fine for work. (You can later reconfigure your VM to reduce memory, but not the drive partition size.)
I haven’t heard of anybody getting wireless networking going from Ubuntu, but I do use wired. I had to configure the VM to use networking in bridged mode.
Just run the Update Manager, then the package manager and install sysstat, gnumeric, abiword, and mozilla-thunderbird packages, and you’re styling.
The post-install bugs I noticed are the disappearing text on dialog boxes during update, and the VM window blacks out on VM startup. Also on startup there is a “ACPI: unable to locate RSDP” error message displayed briefly.
How to install Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) in OS X using Parallels – a complete walkthrough
How to share files and folders in Ubuntu
How to install Ubuntu 7.04 using VMWare Fusion in OS X
How to make all of your folders have the same “View” in Windows XP
How to install Vista in OS X using Parallels – a complete walkthrough
Had enough of the .DS_Store files?
Muffin Research Labs: Running Ubuntu under Parallels Desktop for Mac
macworld.com: Parallels 3.0 supports 3D games, ‘SmartSelect’
