Hi drupal peeps,
So I've been using Parallels for my Microsoft browser testing for a number of years now. It is pretty easy to set up multiple machines depending on what OS version you need to see, but using it is almost intolerably slow.
Also, they are always telling me to upgrade, even though I just did, and there's a limit to the number of "fifty-dollarses" that I want to give over to software that frustrates me.
I am interested in hearing about your favorite VM setups and their performance on a work machine. My use case is primarily testing versions of IE in varying versions of Windows. I don't mind a few hoops to jump through for initial setup, but I'd like to be able to just fire them up easily once done. I'd prefer if everything did not slow to molasses when they're open, as I often need to switch back and forth between open apps in my workflow. It doesn't have to be a free app, just want something that'll support my desire to get the work done.
Ready? go!
:)
Many Thanks,
Comments
I use VirtualBox
Cons:
* Open Source, but run by Oracle
* Is slow in the default setup with shared folders
Pros:
* Open Source
* Faster if you take the time to set up with NFS
* De facto tool for many other tools: Vagrant, Kalabox
* Wide use = lots of help available via Google
I run VB on my dev machine and on my laptop, both as a dev platform with Vagrant and to run Win 7 for a few programs that I still use there, including testing with IE. The Win 7 support is very good.
--Darryl Richman
http://darryl.crafty-fox.com
For my purposes, I use Virtualbox
But I don't run Windows on my Mac (if I need it, I have a couple of old laptops).
I'm not sure what works best for your use-case. Darryl's right about performance issues when using VirtualBox -- even more right when running it on Mac, where the shared file system doesn't work very well, and is very slow.
In any case, I mostly use Virtualbox with Vagrant. When you set this up to use NFS, it's very easy, since Vagrant does the hard part for you. But that won't help you with using Windows, which doesn't work with Vagrant using the NFS file system for a shared file system solution.
One thing I haven't tried myself is VMWare Fusion, which seems to be specifically targeted as a VM solution for Windows-on-Mac. You can try it out for free. My guess is that it will work better than either Virtualbox or Parallels, but YMMV.
VMWare Fusion
I try to find reasons to move from it, but always seem to come back to it. I have almost always since its inception have used VMWare's solution.
I have a screen shot somewhere of my G5 desktop running an instance of Vista and XP at the same time as I was doing other stuff (server maintenance and web dev) within Mac OS X. With my 8 core Mac Pro tower it almost makes *indows palatable.
The options / configurations are very customisable. One can dedicate a specific number of cores to the VMWare environment. In my case 2 cores to VM while the Mac is still chugging at 6. ;) Can do the same in regards to RAM. Hardeware is basically flawless integration: r/w from optical, drag and drop from another Mac mounted HD, and even printing. Any real lag I ever noticed within the VM environment was mainly a graphics thing. When getting a machine I have usually skimped on the graphics card, so I noticed some slowness when playing a game. --this is why someone would want to use *indows right?
Many of the newer Mac laptops have 4 cores, so unless doing something hugely intensive, dividing up 2 cores per OS seems quite reasonable.
Hope I was able to shed a bit of light on the topic for ya, by sharing my experience.
Murias