#My Parallels 8 experience on OS X 10.9 and why I cannot recommend it for Linux developers.
Every Ubuntu 12.04 LTS downloaded through Parallels 8 will show this message after a while:
Because I'm getting this error reproducable on every Ubuntu VM on Parallels 8 I can only guess that support for old Parallels versions are not getting enough attention (maybe this also happens on Parallels 9?).
How to reproduce this error:
- Install Parallels 8 (Parallels 9 is untested because I will not spend one cent more on Parallels).
- Install Ubuntu 12.04 through their menu (some gigabytes big).
- Update of course Parallels Tools on this VM (it ships with old one by default).
- Update Ubuntu itself.
- Keep it running for some while and install the Ubuntu updates of course to keep your VM up to date.
- Optional: Change one setting for this VM while it is closed. E.g. do not share your home folder with this VM.
- Boom. You will get this error message displayed above.
And the bad thing is you will NEVER will get rid of it!
- I tried to upgrade Parallels tools.
- I removed Parallels tools and reinstalled them. Error is still there.
- I setup even a whole new VM but this error keeps splashing up again
My Conclusion:
I paid for this product and Parallels is really great for using simultaneously Windows on your Mac. But if you need Linux and their only officially supported Ubuntu 12.04 I do not recommend Parallels. It has even another error which is on all Ubuntu 12.04 VMs: The top bar shadow is always flickering so I have to remove it on every Unity update to get rid of this flickering (source)
sudo mv /usr/share/unity/5/panel-shadow.png /usr/share/unity/5/panel-shadow.png.orig
As a Linux developer I also really want Vagrant support and Parallels does not seem the perfect fit although I've seen some efforts in this direction on github.
I cannot recommend Parallels. Support for upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is also unclear while I can run this VMs flawless in VirtualBox.
If you are a Linux developer go with Virtualbox or VMware (also supported by Vagrant) and do not look any further on Parallels... I wasted too much time and money with this product.
Thank you for writing this.
Was just going thru this with my copy of Parallels 8 on OS X 10.10 (beta 5) and those parallel tools don't even install if you attempt to run them on Ubuntu 14.04.
If you run one of their images then attempt to upgrade it (because older sources are not accessible) then you get a black screen...
Anyways, trying out vagrant now.