I've been using Parallels on my MacBook to run XP for several betas now and it's great. My main use is to check how my newly created web pages / applets look in IE. For the same reason, I'd like to run linux to check these pages from the popular linux browsers. But I am a total linux n00b. How hard is it to create some kind of standard linux install under Parallels? Anyone got the time to post the key steps? I'm assuming that one can download an .iso disk image and mount that in Parallels, rather than making a physical CD?
I just installed Debian Sarge, that went without a problem. Debian has a "Net Install" .iso image, which is "only" 100M. You can mount it in Parallels and have it boot from it, and it will guide you trough the installation. The .iso only contains the bare essentials, and downloads everything else from the debian mirror sites, so it wouldn't be much fun without a decent internet connection.
try starting with suse I would reommend suse linux as a beginning. It's almost as easy as installing windows. Full graphic installer with clear describtions. You don't need to adjust the standart settings to get this linux running. You will find the latest release 10.1 here: www.opensuse.org
Thanks I'll try those next time I am messing around. For now I have Ubuntu working, full network etc. I used the huge downloadable DVD .iso file, and attached it in Parallels settings in place of the CD drive. Installation went smoothly except that it couldn't get the network working by DHCP. (This is with the real mac network being wireless BTW). So I ran Windows XP in Parallels to get the IP/mask/router that XP 'sees' then ran the installer again and put those network settings in manually when it stalled. This worked - install completed and all I had to do is click "activate" for port en0 from within the system/whateveritis menu in Ubuntu.
