Best Linux host for Parallels on AM2 based PC?

I've been tinkering with this for weeks and need some help. Hardware Specs:

• ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Socket AM2 Motherboard (nForce 590 SLI, dual enet + wireless)
• AMD 4200+ CPU (65w version)
• 4GB of DDR2 800 Mhz memory
• 1 250 GB hard disk for OS
• 4 250 GB hard disks in software level 5 RAID
• 7600GT graphics card
• DVD burner

I can't seem to find a version of Linux that is compatible with my hardware that will run Parallels.
Since it's Christmas time, I'll post what I really want here to see if Santa or someone else can help me get what I want.

I intend to use this PC as a Parallels server so I have PC access from any PC or mac in my network. The host OS only needs to be capable of interacting with my hardware and serving Parallels VMs via Xwindows. No webservers, no cool GUI (Fluxbox would do), just enough to make it fairly easy to configure/reconfigure the Host OS and setup parallels. All the goodies would be on the guest OSes.

The easy thing would be to install windows XP, but that wouldn't give me what I need. Since Linux is free and totally configurable, it's too bad a custom parallels install image has not been made yet. Once I get what I need, I will work toward that end if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Does anyone have some help/advice for me?

I've tried Fedora c5, Fedora c6, and I'm playing with Debian now. I've not been able to complete the config-parallels command successfully. I'll post details soon.

 

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openSuSE.

On another note, is there any reason why you have raid 5 instead of raid 10?
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I don't have a hot spare, I would loose ~200 Gig with raid 10 (1+0). Speed is not a serious issue. This is not a production server. If I need more speed, I'll use a hardware raid card.

 

I don't care for Novell. OpenSuSE would be my last choice. Why would you recommend it?

 

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When it comes to vendor support the field has narrowed to Red Hat and SuSE. Of those two, I like SuSE best for it's superior desktop features.
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I agree, i am using open suse 10.2 now and have 10.1 on another drive.

Yast has been vastly improved in suse 10.2, it is now a very useful tool.

Parallels installs and configures fine on both suse 10.1 and 10.2.

don

 

It's working, but not 100% yet

I was able to install parallels under Gentoo Linux, but it is complaining about only being able to access 3.5GB of RAM vs the 4GB of physical RAM. I'm going to back up this install and try again with the AMD64 version of Gentoo. If it is a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit userland, Parallels should still be happy (I hope).

It also is expecting a device at /dev/rtc (Real time clock?). I need to figure out why that isn't supported with this version of Linux.

 

Rock>me<hardplace

OK, this REALLY stinks...

I tried to play by the rules and used a 32bit OS. This doesn't work because Parallels has issues with the fact that my server has 4GB of ram, but only 3.5 available. This is due to MMIO and how it is handled by linux.

The way you get to see all the memory is to use a 64bit kernel and use "mem=5G" as a kernel parameter. This allows Linux to map around the "hole" created by crappy PC memory mapping IO for PCI. Fine, this works, BUT the parallels drivers will not work with the 64 bit Kernel.

Where is the info on the "Experimental" drivers for Linux x86_64? If Xen can manage on a 64bit Linux, why not Parallels? I'm not going to go buy another gig of RAM to replace 2 gigs in the server just so Parallels works (after a 1GB downgrade). I'll use Xen first.

Parallels techies... Why does the product care that I only have 3.5 GB of ram available out of 4GB total? Why not let it run with the available RAM? Better yet, make it work with a 64bit kernel so I don't have to live with 3.5GB of available RAM. Am I missing something here?

I should have just given in an bought a Mac Pro tower I guess.

 

While I can't speak for Parallels, I can understand why they don't yet support a 64-bit environment. The virtualization setup is significantly different. For example, for VT support, the setup of the VMCS structure needs to be different and would just cause VMLAUNCH to fail in a 64-bit environment. That said, I believe I heard they were designing 64-bit support in to 2.5 or maybe 3.0. I can't remember which.

I feel your pain regarding memory. Parallels seems to be very touchy about memory setup.

 

With more time to think...

It has left me so frustrated, I'm not going to touch it until next week. I didn't clearly pen my meager expectations well so I'll do so now. I understand writing Parallels for a 64-bit linux could be difficult and will take some time. What I am after is this in the short term:

• Leave the application 32-bit for now
• Allow parallels-config to make correct drivers for an x86-64 kernel
• Insure the application makes calls to the 32-bit libriries (I can do that via a shell script)

The issues you describe, do they really fit this scenario?

Another alternative... support Parallels on darwin/X11. The Mac OS X version doesn't seem to have a problem and if it even needs kernel extensions, they are already developed. In theory, I could itstall the mac version on darwin now, but I don't think it would come up under X11. IF this would work, Parallels needs to allow a cross-grade to the license. I'm not buying a 4th license to work around these issues.

I really wanted to pitch Parallels to my company. We use VMs all the time, currently using VMWare on Windows. We don't have a site license and so VMWare is only purchased on an as-needed basis. With Parallels being so affordable, it would be a great alternative. Between the problems I have had with this server and the networking issues I have had with Parallels on windows, I'm keeping my mouth shut for now.

I'm going to reload the 32-bit gentoo and try the mem=5g parameter (again) to see if I can get it working.