Fusion is a hypervisor that runs from within your OSX install as a process and allows you to install virtual machines 'on top' of OSX. In short, you don't need. The virtual machine runs in its own window on the Mac desktop, and can then run your Windows apps on screen at the same time as conventional 'native' Mac apps, such as Apple Mail and Safari.
I consolidated and upgraded my Mac environment. Part of this is that I wanted to have a free-standing “virtual environment” for this Mac. Meaning, I want to be able to run Windows desktop, servers, Ubuntu, etc. I naturally started with VirtualBox , because it’s free. On a VirtualBox VM, I installed the Windows 10 Preview and was shocked to see how not-great it was. Both locally on the MacBook and remotely via Remote Desktop (over a wired gigabit connection), the screen was somewhat choppy, and would be unresponsive – and the screen had problems refreshing occasionally.
So, it worked – but it was definitely not great. OK, so what are my options? I’m a bit new to this, so I did some basic searches and this is what I found for free/inexpensive:. VirtualBox.
VMWare. XenProject. Parallels I’ll review each, below.
VirtualBox As mentioned – it technically works, but the hosted machines – if you are using them interactively, are not very smooth. They are choppy and tend to stammer. More on this below though, there are settings that make a difference. There are several things to try, so for now, I just decided to explore the options first VMWare I believe you can use the to create new VM’s.
I’ve seen it for hosting existing ones, so I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter though because this is dead-on-arrival, it’s only offered on Windows and Linux: So, moving on XenProject I found this site: which claims to be an open source hypervisor. It took some digging on the site, but I had two questions:. What operating systems can it run on?. What operating systems can I host with it? As it turns out, the answers are: Linux and Linux.
In fact, this is one of those: “you have to pull down the source and compile it yourself” kind of projects too. Parallels Everyone keeps mentioning this Parallels program – but this does cost money ($79) – They offer a try/buy, so I downloaded it and tried it. I was already impressed from the first screen.
Free Hypervisor For Mac
I can easily create Windows and Linux VM’s right from the get-go! It’s VERY user-friendly: So, I started with an Ubuntu installation: and sure enough, that works fine – and the VM is very responsive: Next, I pulled down my own Windows 10 Preview.iso, and stepped through the configuration. I set the CPU’s and RAM: Set the video card memory: and then set it to share the network card with the host machine (I chose “Ethernet” from the “Bridged Network:” section): it gives me a summary like this and then I can install: and sure enough, it installs: and this is the main screen for Parallels, from where you can start/stop machines, configure them – or via the menu, create new virtual machines. What is the downside of Parallels? The main thing that REALLY irks me is how it DEEPLY touches the OS that it installs. Both the Linux and Windows installations had a username already setup, and a folder on the desktop for parallels.
In fact, I didn’t “walk through” the installer for either – it just installed it, and landed me at a login prompt. So, these aren’t “pure” installations of these operating systems, it seems like Parallels modifies them significantly, which I don’t like at all. I would strongly, strongly, strongly prefer that Parallels gets it’s greasy hands off my install and let me have a CLEAN install instead of trying to help!
For the Linux one, I can understand it because I chose it from a menu item – but for the Windows 10 one, I pointed to the clean.iso file that I got from MSDN, and it got right up into the OS. After researching this and trying again, I think this was due to this one setting of “Express installation” offered in the wizard: When this is checked, that’s what Parallels really gets it’s hand into the OS.
If you UNCHECK that checkbox, then, you can do a regular installation of the OS. This made the Windows install like normal – which is much better. The next major annoyance is that when you have a window open in your Parallels VM, it shows up in, and clutters-up the dock on the Mac.
See below, I have an instance of Ubuntu running. Within that instance I have: some terminal windows, Firefox, and the Ubuntu Software Center. Now note in the Mac dock that those show up there, adding unnecessary clutter: If I were using these VM’s as an “end-user”, I get why this might be useful – but in my case, I just want a headless hypervisor to run my VM’s! Back to VirtualBox: Considering that Parallels is a very pretty app – but might not be a good fit for what I am trying to do, I decided to go back and see if I can troubleshoot the VirtualBox issues. First, for the blotchy video: I enabled 2D Video Acceleration – which allowed me to then give 256MB of RAM to video processing. When I enabled 3D Acceleration, Windows hung on boot-up just before the login screen, so I disabled. This seemed to fix the redraw issues, and some of the video “stammering”.
I also enabled “” which I don’t think is needed, but: That the VM pretty usable without any obvious problems – although I’ve just been using it superficially. We’ll have to see how it performs under load with several things open at once. Bottom line: On the VirtualBox Windows 10 VM, I installed the latest VS2015 with all of the updates. The install took a LONG time (overnight), but as far as everyday usability – it seems quite usable. So for me, before I spend the $80 on Parallels – I think I am going to see how far VirtualBox takes me.
So far, it seems quite reasonable. If you have any opinions or have found a good combination that works, please leave a comment below!
I was contacted today by, an old acquaintance from which I was really impressed with their technology and introduced them in. I assume that not many of you know that Apple released native hypervisor functionality with their OSX Yosemite, their Hypervisor.framework. What this does is it allows you to run a VM natively on OSX, without the need for client hypervisor (such as VMware Fusion or VirtualBox). Two of the main brains behind the Ravello hypervisor have now released a Native Mac OSX virtualization tool. Say hello to. It is light (20MB), supports Windows and Linux Operating Systems, has extensive useability features such as copy/paste between guest and VM, full-screen, and shared folders.
It is the only virtualization tool that is actually available in the Apple store – becuase it does not make any changes to the kernel. It was really very simple.
I downloaded the tool and started it up. You are presented with 2 choices, create your own VM’s from ISO’s (which is a paid feature) or deploy from Veertu’s servers which has several Linux flavors. I chose Centos 7 Minimal. What happens is that the client downloads the appropriate ISO image that you can install the relevant OS. (I think that the wording above could be improved because it is not actually downloading a VM, rather an ISO image) Once downloaded you can change the various settings of the VM. For example CPU, RAM, Disk, Network etc.
Power it on – and your VM goes through the installation process. (this is how I realized that the client is not downloading a full VM – rather the installation ISO) Here is the Management interface.
And after the Centos 7 installation is complete. And here you have a VM running natively on my Mac. Now the software is not perfect. And there are things that need to be improved, such as:. Each time you create a VM, it downloads the ISO again, which seems a waste of bandwidth to me (it will be changed in a future version).
The download was slow for me, and downloading an ISO could be faster from a local mirror – just that the only way to point to a different ISO is paying for the full product. Of course – what was the first thing I tried to do?
Build an ESXi VM But that did not work because Apple have not enabled supported for nested VM’s (yet). I liked the native interface. I liked the smooth integration, and would definitely keep an eye on this product. We all know that Ravello has an amazing solution which allows you to run your VM’s on any cloud, I think that this will be an interesting way to do things in the future. And if is hint in to where they are going, then this will definitely be interesting Disclaimer: I was approached by Izik to look at the tool. I exchanged a few emails with him, with some questions and suggestions, and I also received a development build of Veertu to test – which is similar (but does not have full feature parity) to the full version which is worth $39.99. I was not asked to write a review.