July 19, 2006

So you've got your $50 $80 copy of Parallels Desktop for your fancy new Intel-based Mac, and now you want to run Ubuntu Linux. An excellent choice. But right now (Parallels Desktop Build 1848 June 12, 2006; Ubuntu 6.06), you're going to need a few magic tricks to get it working.

Trick #1: Download the Ubuntu Desktop CD/DVD/ISO, not the Server edition. The Server edition will hang as it is decompressing the kernel. You will be able to install from the Desktop CD after it has booted from the CD.

Trick #2: Set the virtual machine to no more than 512 MB of RAM. Many users (myself included) are finding that starting up the Desktop CD with a virtual machine set with 1GB of RAM or more produces the following symptoms:

  • Start-up seems fine until it gets to the step about loading hardware drivers. It stops and seems to do nothing for several minutes, then the hardware drivers step reports "failed" and boot-up continues.
  • The desktop environment starts up without sound. Sound does not work.
  • Immediately after the desktop starts, a "warning" dialog opens from "Power Manager" reporting "This program cannot start until you start the dbus system service."
  • When you run the installer, it asks you its questions, then opens the "Installing system" progress indicator. It sits at 0% for a long while, then gets to 15% "Detecting file systems..." and stops. The installer is stuck forever, though the rest of the environment is still responsive.

With RAM set to 512MB, everything works. Hardware drivers load readily, sound works, and installation makes it all the way to the end.

You can download the Ubuntu 6.06 Desktop CD ISO image, and set the virtual machine to boot directly from the image. You do not need to burn the ISO to an actual CD.

And hey check this out, someone suggests on the Parallels forums that you can run Mac OS X's X11 server, then forward windows from Linux in Parallels to the Mac desktop. Not only do you get apps in their own windows, but it can also overcome sluggishness in the display of the Ubuntu desktop. That's awesome.