Mac users: Parallels vs. VMware fusion vs. Boot Camp

[Whiplash]

My going away present to college was a Mac laptop. Even though I've always been a PC guy I was willing to give it a chance. That being said I'm also a Zune owner that likes PC games. I always knew you could dual boot windows on a Mac, but I wasn't aware that there were so many programs that offered to do that. My question is which one is the best. The top 3 that I hear when asking around are Parallels, VMware fusion, and Boot Camp which all claim to be better than each other. I'd try the trial version, but that would be a waste since I'm going back home to my PC next week and again for a month during a winter break so that would honestly be a waste. I'll give all of them a try eventually, but I just wanted to get some suggestions so I can make my decision sooner.

With that said, I do enjoy my Mac its just that handling downloads confuses me and having not been able to download music since mid August is annoying. Well that and handling the Mac equivalents of certain programs I would use on Windows. It was next to impossible for me to get an image under 6k for an avatar here. Editing music was a pain, along with using Aperture (seriously, what the fuck). Other small nitpicks would include not being able to fully maximize windows like Word, Chrome, and Safari they either take up half of the screen or 3/4s of it. I'm still gonna give it a try, but ... its becoming a pain that won't be able to tolerate for a year. Is it just the OS or am I doing it wrong?

[Cecelia5578]

I'm a straight up Ubuntu user; no Macs or Windows machines at my home, so take this for what you want, but I think you're confusing dual booting Windows and OSX with virtual machines. VMWare Fusion will allow you to run Windows as a virtual machine from OSX, while Boot Camp will allow you to actually dual boot some version of Windows with OSX.

Seriously, though, also investigate getting an iPod Touch. Its soooo much better than a Zune HD. And this is from someone who most certainly doesn't drink the Cupertino Kool Aid.

[phongn]

Boot Camp is the only dual-boot solution for Windows on a Mac. It comes with the OS (it should be included on your system DVDs) and it does some magic so you can install Windows. You can install any version of Windows since XP and there are also device drivers for all the various things on your Mac.

VMWare and Parallels are virtual machines. They let you run multiple operating systems simultaneously - so while you are booted into OSX, you can run Windows, Linux or whatnot at the same time. They will also let you run your Boot Camp'ed Windows installation as a virtual machine (so you don't have to reboot if you don't need high-performance graphics).

As for using the Mac - it should handle music downloads like any other operating system. Audio editing should be no different, either (program-dependent) and image compression is a function of the program, not the OS.

Aperture is more of an image library management program with some editing functionality (particularly RAW images). Do you have issues with it compared to Adobe Lightroom? (It's not really comparable to Photoshop - it fills a very different niche).

In general, window management on OSX discourages full-screen applications. You can manually do it, of course, but applications are not supposed to take up the entire screen.

[Whiplash]

Wow, I honestly never thought to manually do it myself. I feel downright retarded given the amount of times I've manually messed with word so I could type whatever while working on something else.

I'm not really a Zune fanboy, it was a Christmas present that I got 2 years ago and I plan on keeping it until it breaks or I lose it. First mp3 player was stolen. My 2nd was the big fat 30gb Zune and I left that in a library, it was gone by the time I noticed I didn't have it. And my 3rd is currently the 2nd gen 8gb. The screen has a crack cause I dropped it on its face, but hardly notice it anymore.

I just did a search for boot camp and yes I do have a "boot camp assistant" application so I'll look into that when I get the chance.

[Skgoa]

My going away present to college was a Mac laptop. Even though I've always been a PC guy I was willing to give it a chance.

So this is your first laptop? Congrats! Which one did you get?

That being said I'm also a Zune owner that likes PC games.

Does Zune not work with Mac OS? Regarding games, there is a growing number of titles that get released for Mac OS at the same time as for Windows. There are also projects like Wine and Cedega, which try to make programs think they are on a Windows machine.

I always knew you could dual boot windows on a Mac, but I wasn't aware that there were so many programs that offered to do that. My question is which one is the best. The top 3 that I hear when asking around are Parallels, VMware fusion, and Boot Camp which all claim to be better than each other. I'd try the trial version, but that would be a waste since I'm going back home to my PC next week and again for a month during a winter break so that would honestly be a waste. I'll give all of them a try eventually, but I just wanted to get some suggestions so I can make my decision sooner.

Parallels: have not tried it, but I hear its the best virtualization choice.
VMware: had big trouble getting OS X to run on my desktop.
Boot Camp: have not tried it, but I hear its super easy to use and working fine.

With that said, I do enjoy my Mac its just that handling downloads confuses me and having not been able to download music since mid August is annoying.

Whats the problem, exactly? I use Cyberduck for FTP and Transmission for Torrent, if I bought music, I would do it in iTunes, for normal HTTP downloads I just use Firefox and of course SCP is included like on any other version of Unix.

Well that and handling the Mac equivalents of certain programs I would use on Windows. It was next to impossible for me to get an image under 6k for an avatar here. Editing music was a pain, along with using Aperture (seriously, what the fuck).

Do you have iLife '11? If not: I have mostly been using the same open source (i.e. free ) programs on Windows and Linux, they have Mac versions, too.

Other small nitpicks would include not being able to fully maximize windows like Word, Chrome, and Safari they either take up half of the screen or 3/4s of it. I'm still gonna give it a try, but ... its becoming a pain that won't be able to tolerate for a year. Is it just the OS or am I doing it wrong?

True fullscreen is coming with the next update to OS X, although many programs have it already. (E.g. Cmd+Shift+F in Firefox) I just stuck my dashboard to the left margin of the screen, so I'm getting (almost) exactly the same screen real estate as on any other OS. (And even more than I got when I used the Gnome window manager on Linux.)

[Skgoa]

ghetto edit:

It was next to impossible for me to get an image under 6k for an avatar here. Editing music was a pain, along with using Aperture (seriously, what the fuck).

Do you have iLife '11? The resizing functionality is hidden (since iPhoto is meant to be used for photos you have taken yourself) in the export popup menu. As you can see on the left, I just did it and uploaded the pic as my avatar.
If not: I have mostly been using the same open source (i.e. free) programs on Windows and Linux for years and they have Mac versions, too. Gimp comes to mind, though its to much functionality for me.

[phongn]

Does Zune not work with Mac OS? Regarding games, there is a growing number of titles that get released for Mac OS at the same time as for Windows. There are also projects like Wine and Cedega, which try to make programs think they are on a Windows machine.

It's pointless to bother with Wine and Cedega when you can use dual-boot or use virtualization.

Parallels: have not tried it, but I hear its the best virtualization choice.

Parallels has a history of choosing performance over stability.

VMware: had big trouble getting OS X to run on my desktop.

Fusion prefers that your CPU has virtualization instructions. What problems in particular do you have?

[Skgoa]

Just all kinds of instalation and usability issues. It began with the website not wanting to accept my registration for the free trial version... [enter account of several frustrating days of trying to fiddle with everything I could to make it work here] and ended with OS X runing so slow it was absolutely unusable. At that point I just decided to buy the Mac without testing the OS beforehand - I figured I could always install Win7 or debian if I didn't like OS X. (Turns out its the best OS I tried, yet. )

[Whiplash]

This was basically a hand-me-down from a my brother since he got a newer Mac. He was did replace the battery and get me a bigger harddrive. Its my 2nd laptop, my first was an HP that I essentially destroyed from the inside.

I'm not a PC gamer, its just a few. Like I played the original Guild Wars, so I plan on getting the sequel and both are PC only at the moment. And I think my copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is for the PC. And Steam does not work well on my Mac.

[phongn]

and ended with OS X runing so slow it was absolutely unusable. At that point I just decided to buy the Mac without testing the OS beforehand - I figured I could always install Win7 or debian if I didn't like OS X. (Turns out its the best OS I tried, yet. )

Oh wait, I didn't realize you meant that. OSX effectively requires a real GPU (even a weak one) to use and will be dog slow without one. It's really not designed to be used in a virtualized environment, either.

I'm not a PC gamer, its just a few. Like I played the original Guild Wars, so I plan on getting the sequel and both are PC only at the moment. And I think my copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is for the PC. And Steam does not work well on my Mac.

You might want to check what hardware is in it before you start going for gaming.