I understand that an attractive market for Parallels is Mac users wishing to run XP, but what about the opposite? I need to do some cross-platform development, and can't afford the Mac hardware right now. Can one install MacOS as a guest, e.g. using Freebsd options? All I need is graphics and networking.
Currently, Mac OS is tied to Apple hardware both by license terms and checks in the code, so the answer is currently, no.
Wouldn't it be possible with the new Mac Pro? Since I spend most of my development time on Windows, I would like to run Windows XP with BootCamp on the Mac Pro and have the Mac OS and Linux as guest OSes instead of the other way around.
. Unfortunately, for you, and maybe others, this is just not possible. And not likely to change any time soon. .
Can't be done... and here is why! Here is how it breaks down... if you are unaware, OS X utilizes TPM (Trusted Platform Module) built into the operating system that checks against a chip on the motherboard and/or CPU to ensure you are running it on a legitimate Apple computer with Apple hardware. Intel OS X does not use a BIOS, like Windows does. Instead it uses EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). Therefore you can only run OS X on a legitimate motherboard from Intel manufactured for Apple with EFI support. Parallels, like VMware, uses a BIOS to boot the guest operating system in the virtual environment, and the ONLY copy of OS X that can run from a BIOS is the hacked version of 10.4.3 - 10.4.8 spread all over the Internet through torrent sites. Therefore, Parallels (a legitimate company) is not going to OFFICIALLY add support for an operating system that can only be run on Paralles if it is a hacked copy. You see, that would basically be promoting the circumventing of copy protection, as everyone would know the support was not in place to install a legitimate copy of OS X, which can only be installed on official apple hardware, not emulated hardware. Apple is not about to give a 3rd party access to its security key or any other means for emulating their TPM checks, as the newest version of 10.4.8 now uses different security keys than the ones previously cracked by the hackers. If they were to do this, Parallels and VMware could easily build this support into the Windows versions of their software (Paralles Workstation and VMware Workstation) to allow the use of legitimate, unaltered copies of OS X to be installed everywhere, thus bypassing the need to purchase Apple Hardware. They would be slitting their own throat... keep in mind, unlike Microsoft, Apple is a hardware company, first and foremost. You have to realize how hard it was for those hackers to alter the Mach kernel of OS X in order to bypass TPM and EFI. They are hardcore coders, so unless you know how to decompile and patch the Mach kernel and sources of OS X, good luck trying to get it to run. You can't even call it a side-by-side progression of BSD, due to the mass forked changes between the two. Now, it is very possible that the current hacked versions of OS X may install on parallels right now at its current release by selecing BSD or Linux from the drop down for guest OS type, however, you won't ever see Parallels as a company releasing direct support for OS X. On a final note, with my own experiences installing a hacked copy of OS X on many vanilla PC's, I doubt the virtual drivers for Paralles will allow OS X to properly recognize the virtual hardware references, due to the narrow range of hardware support built into OS X
