I am using trial version of Parallels Pro and have imported a Red Hat 7.2 VM from VirtualBox. The VM worked fine until I installed Parallels Tools on it. After that, graphics went missing. All I get after startup now is a grey screen with occasional red stripes. What is the reason for this behavior and how to revert to the condition before I installed Parallels Tools?
I solved this problem by uninstalling Parallels Tools. I ssh-ed into the Red Hat guest and ran the Parallels Tools install executable with the -r option. This executable is in /usr/bin/Parallels \Tools. As to why Tools aren't working, that's up to the support staff here to answer. For now I guess I'll have to ignore the notification about Tools not being installed and live without guest-host integration. It is quite strange to see non-free software being less capable than free software. I had VirtualBox give me the full integration and wide screen within minutes.
Edit: it is /usr/lib/parallels-tools/install -r. I wonder if Parallels support team aims only at the low- laying fruit when answering questions on this forum. It is true that I am using a free, trial version of Parallels but if this is a harbinger of things to come, I am now in doubt if I want to be a paying customer once the trial ends. Without Parallels Tools, I can't have the full integration mode- file sharing, seamless apps etc.
I think I solved this and much more, and managed to enable Coherence Mode even, but there are some limitations. And I got my Red Hat 7 virtual machine in Coherence Mode, it looks impressive. There are things that need to be automated, alerts to pop up when deciding to virtualize Linux with Parallels, like a pop-up box that would say "with Linux, you'll get this-and-this disabled, this will be increased, and is available only for this windowing manager not others". There were some operations done on the guest but nothing overly involving. Almost all that needed to be figured out was the Parallels settings part. A caveat- I did this on an imported VM, not a fresh install. I am sure it would work on a fresh install too.
What did you change in Parallels settings to fix this? I am having this problem with Oracle 6.5 (with Both Oracle and Red Hat Kernels)
While guest is switched off, disable 3d effects: Graphics > Settings > uncheck Enable 3d effects. On the guest, disable Desktop Effects. Since GNOME doesn't have a clear way of disabling this feature, you'll have to install KDE. Something like "yum install kde-desktop" and disable Desktop effects. And from there, it's all downhill. I added more RAM to the guest but that may not have been necessary.
All steps described are based on Parallels Knowledge Base articles about installing Linux and enabling Coherence Mode. it would have been very helpful if all of these articles were put together into one how- to. It seems though that primary focus is given to running Windows as a guest.
