G’Day,
After some significant pain, I setup linux dual boot for the mac, but what I really want is to sometimes boot into linux, and sometimes just access the linux from my macos. So you think no worries, Parallels supports Boot Camp, just use that. Wrong. For Parallels to use a file system it needs to be mountable by the mac. CentOS uses ext3, and by default the mac doesn’t support ext2/ext3. So
- Step 1. Install CentOS using Boot Camp. (see here…) TODO
- Step 2. Reboot into MacOS, and install Mac Fuse
- Step 3. Install fuse-ext2 (see Mount Ext2/Ext3 file system from a mac)
- Step 4. Create a new Parallels install using the custom settings and boot camp partition. Here are the step-by-step screen shots.
Create New Virtual Machine
Choose Boot Camp Partition, click Continue
Select Version: More Linux -> CentOS Linux
Click Continue
Virutal Machine Type: Click Custom
CPU and Memory Options: I like 1G of main memory, click continue
Hard Disk Options: choose Boot Camp Partition, click Continue
I only have one disk, but pick the right one, click Continue
I like Shared Networking (Recommended), click Continue
Optimize for Virtual machine (Recommended) seems like a good choice, after all if you want to optimize for the mac, then don’t run the virtual machine. You can always change this later.
Pick a name and a location for the Virtual machine, click Create.
When you start up the vm .. done
And soon enough you see the CentOS linux running inside my mac.