VMware today released a beta version of the new VMware desktop product for the Mac, codenamed Fusion. It supports a wide variety of x86/x64 guests, and is cross-compatible with virtual machines created in VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Server and VMware Infrastructure 3. It supports Virtual SMP, drag & drop of files between OS X and virtual machines, and supports all USB 2.0 devices. Even devices that do not have drivers for OS X will work in a virtual machine.
VMware Mac Fusion Beta – A Whole New Way to Slice it
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Eugenia Loli
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Fusion runs Zeta, unlike Parallels. I’m currently trying to convert the VMWare image to Parallels to see if it works, but for once Zeta is runnable in OS X now. Of course, without good grfx/sound drivers I’m not sure what I’ll do with it…
I was a part of the private Beta. I gave very lengthy feedback to VMWare (who didn’t even bother to give even an automated response).
In summary – doesn’t hold a candle to Parallels. Whilst I know that VMWare’s virtualisation engine is top notch (being a VMWare user on Windows), the feature set, UI and design is more like the first beta of Parallels, and not the Coherence Mode / BootCamp Booting / App-Switching toting latest Parallels Beta.
VMWare’s best bet is the Enterprise market (which I assume is their stance to begin with)
It is beta… but they probably won’t add major features as they progress… still, the latest beta of parallels is buggy, I hear – at least based on comments by people trying to use it on macupdate.
This may be a stupid question, I haven’t been paying to much attention to VMWare MAC Fusion. If I was to buy a copy of OSX from the Apple store, does this mean that I can create and run virtual machines of OSX under Linux or Windows?
If I was to buy a copy of OSX from the Apple store, does this mean that I can create and run virtual machines of OSX under Linux or Windows?
Not by the terms of the EULA (at least not on non-Apple hardware). Also, it just wouldn’t work unless you used a hacked version of the OS X.
Tiger isn’t supported in any virtualizers atm, so you can’t run multiple copies of OS X
it supports USB2.0 for all external storage needs! That’s a BIG plus.
Parallels Desktop for Mac beta2 does that too.
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/beta_testing/
I find this fascinating because VMWare has been stuck with USB 1 support on Windows and Linux for a while now and it seemed easy for both Parallels and VMWare to add USB 2.0 support on their products for MacOS.
I wonder if there is something about MacOS that makes this easy where it seems to be hard on Linux and Windows.
I know some people that have been waiting for USB 2.0 support on VMWare in Linux for a long time.
There’s nothing intrinsic about MacOS – the difference is that USB1.0 and USB2.0 require an entirely differnet hardware controller (look up UHCI and EHCI), and implementing / debugging that takes time.
Workstation 6 is also in public beta now, and it has USB 2.0 for Windows / Linux.
(-VMware employee)
if you could run multiple instances of osx with full hardware accelleration. I would buy it and i bet a whole host of others would. vmware >>> hint hint… nudge nudge.
I wish they have a solaris compatible vmware server console to allow us to remotely connect to vm(s) on remote hosts.
Mac support must not be a priority for vmware company for now; they must concentrate on making vmware infrastructure more compatible with server hardware even workstation ones and not to have support for just 2 NIC manufacturers, namely Intel and Broadcom.
Also, I have noticed that their linux products runs slower than windows counterparts. (windows server 2003 EE vs CentOS 4.4.updates)
Otherwise, vmware is an excellent company, well done
There used to be commercial Mac emulator for Amiga & Windows named Fusion.
http://www.haage-partner.de/com/products/fu_d.htm
i have a mac pro with 2.66 woodcrest xeons (which have the 64 bit instruction set arch). i installed vista into fusion (the ultimate version), yet i never saw a place to select 32 or 64 bit versions and vista installation put the 32 bit version on there. fusion does appear to support 64 bit vista and xp, but is it maybe that os x is 32 bits only?