Long, long ago (unsure when; the dates got messed up on this blog) I tried to get into Linux with the Ubuntu flavor. It seemed to work OK for a while, but it eventually failed to boot and I got sick of re-installing it, so I finally gave up on it.

Yesterday, I installed Parallels on my Macbook Pro. Parallels allows you to run different OSs simultaneously. I didn’t have a copy of Windows, so I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it as a ‘guest os.’

Ubuntu has come a long way (I installed 6.06). The installer is easy and user-friendly. It’s basically a liveCD that, once booted, has a one-click installer on the desktop.

According to Parallels, Ubuntu isn’t officially supported, but it works wonderfully. There are some complaints on the forum that folks can’t get it to use the airport card, but it automatically bridged my airport connection and I was on-line with no configuration. There’s also issues with running it at a higher resolution than 1024x768. That’s the default resolution I’m getting, but I haven’t looked into that issue yet.

What am I going to do with it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I want to shell out the 50USD for Parallels. Installing Windows on Parallels would be more practical for me (obviously) and may make it worth the 50 bones. Plus, how cool would it be to be a triple-threat: OS X, Linux and Windows all on the same hardware, at the same time! I think I’ll attempt a Vista install, stay tuned. permanent link to this post