Comments on: WinOnMac Smackdown

One thing you neglected to talk about was hardware virtualization, The next Intel up grade to the Core Solo and Duo processor chips is the Merom and Conroe chips. Both of these will be 64 bit machines and support hardware virtualization at no extra cost. They are due toward the end of the year and are likely to be included in the Macintosh line. Then, it will be seamless to have virtualization of Windows, Linux and Mac OSX on the same machine, if you choose.

Much of this is growing pains-- a necessary part of the Macintosh's migration to Intel. Apple needed to get products out the door quickly, so it accepted lower power specifications than it wanted and had under PowerPC (64 bit processing). The hold up wasn't Apple; the Merom and Conroe chips weren't available yet.

I'm still waiting to migrate; I have a 4 year old 800 Mhz flat screen IMac and it works just fine on AT&T DSL. The present Intel Mac's are fast enough to tempt me, but I'm waiting for a 20 inch Intel Flat panel iMac with a 2.5 Ghz dual processor Conroe chip running on Mac OSX 10.5. All that should be shipping by Christmas or shortly after the first of the year. I will be installing Window since there are some web functions that don't run well for the Mac's.

Louis Wheeler

My question is which approach is safer? I am reluctant to install XP on my main partition out of fear it eould gum up my mac. I figure a separate partition would be better. What do you think?

Thanks, Steve

On Apr 12, 2006, at 1:29 AM, IHC-Laurel" wrote:

> My question is which approach is safer? I am reluctant to install
> XP on my main partition out of fear it eould gum up my mac. I
> figure a separate partition would be better. What do you think?

As things stand now, you don't really have a choice. If you want to
dual-boot with Boot Camp, you split your hard drive into two
partitions. If you want to run a virtual machine with Parallels, you
use a disk image.

(One of my coworkers claims that the firmware upgrades necessary for
Boot Camp to run makes Parallels unwilling to run, so you have to
choose one or the other before doing them. Given his technical track
record, though, I'd file that under "unsubstantiated, probably wrong,
rumor," but it's something worth checking out.)


[ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my own eyes. -Andrew ]

Charlton


--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilburchromatico.net

On 12/4/2006 5:29 PM, "IHC-Laurel" <SBailiniowaheart.com>" <> spake thus:

> My question is which approach is safer? I am reluctant to install XP on my
> main partition out of fear it eould gum up my mac. I figure a separate
> partition would be better. What do you think?

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. If you're installing dual boot with
Boot Camp, then it *has* to be on a separate partition by definition. If
you're talking about virtualisation, it'll be a disk image and therefore
completely separate from the rest of the file system anyway (in effect a
separate "logical" partition, if you like). Either way I don't see a
problem. I used to run Virtual PC on a non-partitioned machine with no
problems whatsoever.

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

On Apr 11, 2006, at 10:29 PM, IHC-Laurel wrote:

> My question is which approach is safer? I am reluctant to install
> XP on my main partition out of fear it eould gum up my mac. I
> figure a separate partition would be better. What do you think?
>

With a Virtual Machine it doesn't really matter- the Guest PC is just
a big file you can move around as needed. During setup you can create
a virtual disk for the Guest OS that expands as needed up to a max
size. This is much more flexible than dual boot.

But don't short change yourself- I messed up and made my first
virtual disk too small, so I had to add a second virtual disk. I
underestimated how much size a basic install of XP takes with a
minimal install of Office.

-rm

On Apr 14, 2006, at 11:38 PM, Charlton Wilbur wrote:

>
> (One of my coworkers claims that the firmware upgrades necessary for
> Boot Camp to run makes Parallels unwilling to run, so you have to
> choose one or the other before doing them. Given his technical track
> record, though, I'd file that under "unsubstantiated, probably wrong,
> rumor," but it's something worth checking out.)
>
>
> [ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my
> own eyes. -Andrew ]

I find Parallels to be very unstable on my firmware-updated iMac but
fairly solid on my MacBookPro without the firmware update.

Windows XP performance in Parallels is very respectable. I ran some
benchmarks with PassMark PerformanceTest ( http://www.passmark.com/ )
which shows that it completely blows away a Dell Dimension 8200 &
Dell 4100 (using its baseline comparisons). You can see the results
at http://www.mcdevzone.com/content/benchmark.html

Note that I wasn't able to run the 3D tests since they won't work
with the video driver.

At 20:38 -0700 UTC, on 2006-04-14, Charlton Wilbur wrote:

[...]

> (One of my coworkers claims that the firmware upgrades necessary for
> Boot Camp to run makes Parallels unwilling to run [...]
>
> [ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my own eyes.
>-Andrew ]

Confirmed. I have Parallels running just fine on an Intel Mac mini, both
before and after the firmware upgrade. (But without having tried BootCamp
yet.)


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On 14 Apr 2006, at 21:38 , Charlton Wilbur wrote:

> [ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my
> own eyes. -Andrew ]

Yeppers, it's working on my mac mini (as was Boot Camp, but I removed
the BC partition when I went to try out Parallels as there is only so
much room on a 60GB drive).

--
You are responsible for your Rose
Rule #5 Get Kirsten Dunst Wet

On Apr 14, 2006, at 11:38 PM, Charlton Wilbur wrote:

> [ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my
> own eyes. -Andrew ]

Yes, indeed. Parallels works on a Mac Mini Intel as well. The
problem is that it can't take advantage of the processor's support
for virtualization, so it must do a certain amount of emulation in
software still.

By the way, there's one problem with the beta version of Parallels
which I'm going to report to them. If the computer is set to sleep,
it will freeze with Parallels running, at least if the emulation has
the focus. I suspect that it would be OK if the focus were not owned
by the emulated OS. You have to make a clear switch to retrieve the
focus from the virtual machine with a key combination (by default
Control-Option), which of course is impossible to do when you need
them owned by the host OS to wake the computer.

Geoff

On Apr 14, 2006, at 11:38 PM, Nigel Stanger wrote:

> On 12/4/2006 5:29 PM, "IHC-Laurel" <SBailiniowaheart.com>" <> spake
> thus:
>
> I'm not sure I follow what you mean. If you're installing dual boot
> with
> Boot Camp, then it *has* to be on a separate partition by definition.
> If
> you're talking about virtualisation, it'll be a disk image and
> therefore
> completely separate from the rest of the file system anyway (in effect
> a
> separate "logical" partition, if you like). Either way I don't see a
> problem. I used to run Virtual PC on a non-partitioned machine with no
> problems whatsoever.

There's no inherent reason why a virtualization app can't use a real
partition on your hard drive instead of a disk image file. I believe
Cooperative Linux (colinux) has such an option. I could see it being
useful for some, having a single copy of Windows that you can run as a
Guest OS for certain applications but still have the option of dual
booting for running it full speed (for games).

As to the original question, booting any other OS on your hardware
opens up the possibility that something will mess up your ability to
boot OS X or alter your OS X partition. Even if you could boot Windows
from a separate hard drive, it's still possible for something to happen
to your OS X hard drive. Virtualization apps are only a little riskier
than other apps and far less risky than installing and booting other
OS's on the real hardware.

[ I wonder if the final version of Boot Camp won't include a hypervisor that boots from one's Boot Camp partition, and then switches back and forth ala Fast User Switching. -Andrew ]

>> My question is which approach is safer? I am reluctant to install
>> XP on my main partition out of fear it eould gum up my mac. I
>> figure a separate partition would be better. What do you think?
>>
>
> With a Virtual Machine it doesn't really matter- the Guest PC is just
> a big file you can move around as needed. During setup you can create
> a virtual disk for the Guest OS that expands as needed up to a max
> size. This is much more flexible than dual boot.
>
> But don't short change yourself- I messed up and made my first
> virtual disk too small, so I had to add a second virtual disk. I
> underestimated how much size a basic install of XP takes with a
> minimal install of Office.
>
And it WILL grow. I have VPC partitions that have grown to over 10 gigs
after installing AutoCAD LT and MS Office and then used for a while. I
think the issue is paging/swap files but haven't looked hard to see
where the space is going. Windows really needs more ram than OS X. A gig
minimum.

On Apr 16, 2006, at 10:18 PM, Curtis Wilcox wrote:

> There's no inherent reason why a virtualization app can't use a real
> partition on your hard drive instead of a disk image file. I believe
> Cooperative Linux (colinux) has such an option. I could see it being
> useful for some, having a single copy of Windows that you can run as a
> Guest OS for certain applications but still have the option of dual
> booting for running it full speed (for games).
>
> As to the original question, booting any other OS on your hardware
> opens up the possibility that something will mess up your ability to
> boot OS X or alter your OS X partition. Even if you could boot Windows
> from a separate hard drive, it's still possible for something to
> happen
> to your OS X hard drive. Virtualization apps are only a little riskier
> than other apps and far less risky than installing and booting other
> OS's on the real hardware.

Virtual machines generally run from disk images, rather than
partitions, for a couple of reasons.

First is performance/management. A virtual machine running from a
partition that's then dual-booted would have driver conflicts between
versions. Windows is actually pretty adept at swapping drivers based
on where it's booted, but this definitely creates all sorts of
performance problems and leads to potential instability. Other
operating systems are not always as adaptable (Linux versions can
also do this, but not every Linux version).

The main historical market for virtualization has been enterprises
and developers, not consumers. One of their main reasons for using
virtualization is portability, for which disk images are much better
than partitions. You can't do snapshots, move partitions, revert to
previous versions, make as many copies as you need, etc. using a
partition. Parallels doesn't support all of this yet, but look at
VMWare for more robust virtual machine management (without the Mac
support).

So it's possible, but there really hasn't been any demand for running
off a partition vs. a disk image. It would reduce performance and
many of the management options you have with images.

SInce Boot Camp is just an advanced boot loader, I suspect this is
not something Apple is considering. The memory management alone would
be problematic. They might add a hypervisor to the OS, but I doubt a
hypervisor/Boot Camp combination.

-rm

On Apr 16, 2006, at 10:18 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> At 20:38 -0700 UTC, on 2006-04-14, Charlton Wilbur wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> (One of my coworkers claims that the firmware upgrades necessary for
>> Boot Camp to run makes Parallels unwilling to run [...]
>>
>> [ I've seen a firmware-updated Mac Book Pro run Parallels with my
>> own eyes.
>> -Andrew ]
>
> Confirmed. I have Parallels running just fine on an Intel Mac mini,
> both
> before and after the firmware upgrade. (But without having tried
> BootCamp
> yet.)

We now know from posts here that Parallels (pick one) on a firmware-
updated Intel Mac:
     a. doesn't work
     b. works fine
     c. works but not as well as without the firmware update

It doesn't much matter what the answer is, in that future Parallels
will have to work with the newer firmware, since that's all that will
be available in yet-to-be-released machines.

Actually, I've seen similar reports for non-updated Intel Macs.

But for the present, this sort of thing is why one does things like
Parallels and Boot Camp on a sandbox machine.

Aside: I would not be at all surprised to learn that the Windows
activation process sees the Boot Camp installation and the Parallels
installation as two different machines. (I also wouldn't be
surprised to learn that that is not the case.)

   --John

On Apr 16, 2006, at 10:18 PM, Andrew interjected:

> [ I wonder if the final version of Boot Camp won't include a
> hypervisor that boots from one's Boot Camp partition, and then
> switches back and forth ala Fast User Switching. -Andrew ]

I doubt there will be a "final version of Boot Camp." Something,
yes, but not with that name.

   --John

On 4/17/06 19:42, "David Ross" <drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

> I have VPC partitions that have grown to over 10 gigs
> after installing AutoCAD LT and MS Office and then used for a while. I
> think the issue is paging/swap files but haven't looked hard to see
> where the space is going. Windows really needs more ram than OS X. A gig
> minimum.

That's because Windows' memory usage is stupid. At boot, the OS reserves
half of physical RAM for itself, and everything else gets what's left.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On 4/17/06 8:42 PM, "David Ross" <drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

> And it WILL grow. I have VPC partitions that have grown to over 10 gigs
> after installing AutoCAD LT and MS Office and then used for a while. I
> think the issue is paging/swap files but haven't looked hard to see
> where the space is going. Windows really needs more ram than OS X. A gig
> minimum.

VPC disk images grow but I don't think they ever shrink. Windows lets you
set a Max and Min for page file size in fact a common recommendation has
been to set these values to be the same to avoid pagefile fragmentation.
What you set the Max to depends on how much RAM you let the GuestOS use and
what you're doing with the GuestOS.

It's not been my experience that Windows needs more RAM than OS X for
ordinary office & Internet use. 512MB has been adequate for both for a few
years. If anything, I'd put more RAM in an OS X machine because it's more
likely to make that system feel faster and because one's more likely to use
RAM gobbling multimedia apps on a Mac.

--On April 17, 2006 5:42:15 PM -0700 David Ross
<drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

> And it WILL grow. I have VPC partitions that have grown to over 10 gigs
> after installing AutoCAD LT and MS Office and then used for a while. I
> think the issue is paging/swap files but haven't looked hard to see
> where the space is going. Windows really needs more ram than OS X. A gig
> minimum.

A lot of that may be dead space. The Windows VPC has a tool for compacting
the VHD files, but it is a bit brain dead. Before it will work you have to
defrag the drive (built into XP) AND zero out all un-used sectors (requires
a 3rd party tool). Then run the compact tool and it should shrink the
drive.

Also you can create VHD images of a fixed size that won't grow beyond that
size. I usually create a 4GB or 8GB (depending on what I'm doing) image
for the Windows XP system. If I need more space I just create another drive
and mount it as an e: drive.

--On April 17, 2006 9:50:32 PM -0700 "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com>
wrote:

> That's because Windows' memory usage is stupid. At boot, the OS reserves
> half of physical RAM for itself, and everything else gets what's left.

No, it doesn't. A standard 32-bit machine is capable of addressing 4GB of
RAM. Windows splits this 4GB of vitual space into 2GB for Windows and 2GB
for applications. This has nothing to do with the PHYSICAL memory installed
in the machine, this is just the virtual space that is split in half.
Windows will take all physical memory not currently active and use it as a
file cache. Technically this means the Windows system occupies everything
not used by applications.

You can modify these settings somewhat. Booting XP with a /3GB switch (this
is done modifying the boot.ini file on the boot partition) will reserve 3GB
of virtual address space for applications and 1GB for the system. Only
applications that are LargeAddressAware will be able to get 3GB of virtual
space.

Windows 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter editions (and I believe the 64-bit
XP) support larger virtual spaces (32GB for Enterprise and 64GB for
Datacenter).

<http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx>

--On April 17, 2006 9:50:32 PM -0700 Robert Movin <rmovingmail.com> wrote:

> On Apr 16, 2006, at 10:18 PM, Curtis Wilcox wrote:
>
>> There's no inherent reason why a virtualization app can't use a real
>> partition on your hard drive instead of a disk image file.

> Virtual machines generally run from disk images, rather than
> partitions, for a couple of reasons.

In addition to the reasons Robert mentioned there is another reason this
isn't typically done -- The virtualization application still has to use the
Host OS to read/write from physical disks. For a disk image this doesn't
really matter, it emulates a drive controller and uses the OS to write the
bits to the image. It doesn't have to understand the format of the bits
being written.

If it has to read/write from the actual partition then the OS has to
understand the file format/partition that is being read and written. Mac OS
X doesn't support read/write NTFS, and can't handle Ext2, Ext3, XFS, etc...
without 3rd party add-ons. To support a native partition either OS X or the
virtualization app will have to support all the file formats users might
want to use.

> You can't do snapshots, move partitions, revert to
> previous versions, make as many copies as you need, etc. using a
> partition. Parallels doesn't support all of this yet, but look at
> VMWare for more robust virtual machine management (without the Mac
> support).

Virtual PC on the Mac (PPC only still) and Windows VPC support undo disks
which can be rolled back to recover from a problem, something not possible
on a real partition. I don't use them because of the amount of space
required, but useful for things like a training room to roll-back machines
for a new class.

<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/evaluation/techoverview.mspx>

At 1:46 PM -0700 2006/04/19, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>--On April 17, 2006 9:50:32 PM -0700 "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com>
>wrote:
>
>Windows 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter editions (and I believe the 64-bit
>XP) support larger virtual spaces (32GB for Enterprise and 64GB for
>Datacenter).
>
><http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx>

        PAE (Physical Address Extension) is the trick used to access
4gb or more on 32-bit x86 CPUs (such as the current Intel Macs). PAE
is not required on 64-bit CPUs. I've read that using PAE decreases
performance by about 20%.

        Note that not all the 4gb is available on a 32-bit 4gb PC,
because some of the address space is mapped out to device drivers.
AIUI, a 32-bit PC with 4 1gb DIMMs provides about 3.5gb of usable
memory -- the remainder is wasted.


At 1:46 PM -0700 2006/04/19, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>--On April 17, 2006 9:50:32 PM -0700 Robert Movin <rmovingmail.com> wrote:

>In addition to the reasons Robert mentioned there is another reason this
>isn't typically done -- The virtualization application still has to use the
>Host OS to read/write from physical disks. For a disk image this doesn't
>really matter, it emulates a drive controller and uses the OS to write the
>bits to the image. It doesn't have to understand the format of the bits
>being written.
>
>If it has to read/write from the actual partition then the OS has to
>understand the file format/partition that is being read and written. Mac OS
>X doesn't support read/write NTFS, and can't handle Ext2, Ext3, XFS, etc...
>without 3rd party add-ons. To support a native partition either OS X or the
>virtualization app will have to support all the file formats users might
>want to use.

        Well, no. Parallels could write a block-device driver that
accessed a host (Mac) disk as a block device. They'd have to be
careful the guest wasn't let out of its cage to see the rest of the
disk, but there's no reason the VM system's partitions must be
mounted by the host, in order to be mounted by a guest.


                                                Chris