Newbie question - Can Macs run Mac OS, Windows and Linux at the same time?

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Hey Folks,

A very quick question which could be totally dumb. I apologise in advance if it is.

I am very tempted to purchase a MAC and one of the core functionalities that appeals to me most is the ability to run multiple OS's with Fusion or Parallels etc. However, I have heard rumours that it is possible to have Windows, Linux and Mac OS running along-side each other at the same time, in real-time. Do you know if that is possible? If so, what is the performance like?

In a nutshell, if I could have access to all 3 OS's in realtime without any restart required, that would be a massive plus.

All help appreciated,

Cheers,

D
 
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Your Mac's Specs
15" 2014 MacBook Pro, i7 2.5Ghz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD; iPad 3, iPhone 6
Yes, it's possible. I can have SuSE linux, WinXP and OS X all running at the same time (the 1st two under parallels).

The only real limitation is RAM, each virtual machine realistically consumes about 600MB of RAM (assuming you allow 512MB of RAM for the OS), but I have had 3 running on a MacBook 2ghz Core Duo, with 2 gigs of RAM with no real issues with YouTube videos playing in all 3 simultaneously.

I prefer Parallels to VM Fusion, but it's possible on both.
 
Joined
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St Helens, OR, USA
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook CoreDuo 2Ghz 768M RAM
VirtualBox
Parallels
VMWare Fusion
I've used all three. I am currently using Virtualbox to run Windows XP and various flavors of Linux.
Not out of necessity (i.e., nothing I do requires something "Windows-only"), but the occasional need (family needs Windows support, etc)
It's Mac, not MAC (MAC is a Machine Address Code...networking hardware identifier) , but you're new here, so we'll let it slide ;D
 
OP
D
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3 days on.... Loving it. Highly recommended to Windows/Linux/Unix users.
 

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