Ask Dave Taylor is a registered trademark of Intuitive Systems, LLC.

My question: whats the best, easiest way to install Ubuntu Linux on my Mac system so I can run all my tests.

Why Because its literally a one-click download to get it up and running.

Now I realize that Parallels Desktop, like VMWare Fusion, is a commercial Mac application and has a price tag associated with it, but it sounds like this is related to your work and, well, sometimes you have to pay for your tools, right The again, its not that expensive at 79.

From a testing perspective, the Ubuntu Linux environment within Parallels is functionally identical to running the operating system native on a PC computer, which is nice.

Parallels Tools Mac OS X Environment

Its just neatly tucked into the Mac OS X environment and a nice bonus can run full screen giving you the distinct impression that your Mac is only running Linux, which is bound to impress your geeky friends Once youve installed Parallels Desktop on your computer, simply launch the program and youll be given a variety of options for proceeding: The option you seek is on the lower left: Download Ubuntu Free.

Thats really all you need to do, its going to do everything else in a surprisingly automated fashion.

With a decent connection, however, its not too long to wait and you can always switch to a different window and do something else while you wait.

Once it has downloaded, the installation will be uncompressed Literally the next step after it uncompresses and installs is that Parallels Desktop launches the new image and youve got Ubuntu running Note the warning on the bottom, though: Parallels Tools are outdated.

Parallels Tools Update These Important

Not hard to do but before we update these important display and network drivers, lets just log in Click on parallels and dont worry, you dont need to know the password to proceed Pick an easily remembered password and click the orange Login button.

Nice This particular release of Ubuntu Linux goes by the rather odd name of Oneiric Ocelot, which, Google assures me, has the following explanation: Oneiric means dreamy, and the ocelot is a domestic-sized cat native to South and Central America.

Now you know. Lets fix that out of date tools issue before youre done, just so you can see that its similarly easy in Parallels Desktop.

Along the bottom of the window, youll notice that the gear icon has a small black triangle adjacent.

Click on it and youll see all the configuration options appear: The one we want is the gear within a gear: its displayed with a tiny blue element to highlight that your attention is needed.

Click on it: To update the Parallels Tools within the Ubuntu Linux environment in Parallels Desktop, simply click on the ingeniously named Update Parallels Tools.

Thats it. When youre ready to go full-screen and hide the Mac OS X menu bar, you can either click on the diagonal updown arrows on the very top right of the window, or pull down the window options menu on the lower right, where two overlapping windows icons are displayed.

Either way, I think youll be surprised and pleased at the performance and ease of working within the Ubuntu environment for your testing while still having the best of the Mac OS X world accessible with a mouseclick.

When I try to updtae the Parallels Tools, I get two dialog boxes in turn.

One says that I am going to update Parallels Tools etc So I click Yes because thats what I want to do.

What am I doing wrong I assume the account that was created for me has Root privileges, if not how do I get them in Linux, there doesnt seem to be any way to set that up Thanks from a long-time Mac user but a Linux Newbie.

Do you click Yes, Upgrade Now and then update Parallel Tools Or, do you update Parallels Tools and then upgrade to 11.10 Also, when done does the bar at top of Ubuntu screen change to read: Ubuntu Linux 11.10 Desktop Parallels Desktop I already tried once to install through Parallels 7 but failed to get Parallel Tools to update and even though I successfully upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10, the bar at top read: Ubuntu Linux 11.04 Desktop Parallels Desktop.

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Dave Taylor.

Download Parallels Tools Mac