Macbook and VirtualBox/VMWare Fusion

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Does anyone have any information/experience with running VM's on a Macbook or MacBook Pro? I am in need of a laptop to run a VM of RHEL 6.0 and I was wondering if RHEL "plays nice" on a Macbook. VirtualBox and RHEL seemed to install fine on my wife's Gateway laptop but memory was an issue so I was unable to actually do anything.
 

Raz0rEdge

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I use VirtualBox to run Ubuntu on it and it works like a charm..what are the specs of your Macbook? If you have about 1-2G of memory to spare to the VM, it'll work fine..

Regards
 
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I use VirtualBox to run Ubuntu on it and it works like a charm..what are the specs of your Macbook? If you have about 1-2G of memory to spare to the VM, it'll work fine..

Regards

I don't have a Mcbook yet. I was thinking of getting one, but wanted to make sure I could run VM's properly first. I am trying to study for the RHCSA exam and I need a fully-functioning VM of RHEL.
 
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I've run Windows (XP & 7) & Ubuntu on several mb/mbp and never had an issue using VMWare Fusion and Parallels. I use VirtualBox at work (running XP on Vista) but the best I can say about it is that it gets the job done. I really wish Fusion or Parallels had a Windows client. They are so much smoother & easier to use for my purposes. One of my issues is that a key piece of software requires a USB dongle (hardware key) to work. It's a headache getting it to work in Virtualbox but Fusion/Parallels will just pop up and ask me what I want to do with it.

I'd suggest trying VirtualBox to see if it works for you since it's free. If not or you don't mind the cost, I'd highly suggest one of the other 2.
 

vansmith

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I run 7 VMs in VirtualBox (2 Windows, 3 Linux, 1 OpenBSD, 1 Syllable) and they all work fine. My suggestion - setup the RHEL VM in VBox on your machine now, make sure it works and then simply move it over to the Mac.
 
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I run 7 VMs in VirtualBox (2 Windows, 3 Linux, 1 OpenBSD, 1 Syllable) and they all work fine. My suggestion - setup the RHEL VM in VBox on your machine now, make sure it works and then simply move it over to the Mac.

I have very limited experience with VBox. When you say "move it over" is there some file/folder where everything is stored that will allow me to just copy it over? Can I install/configure it on my iMac and just copy the files to my laptop and it will "auto-detect" the changes between the systems?
 

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VBox creates a virtual HD that is simply a file. For instance, my Debian VM is located at ~/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/DebianTesting.vdi and is 7.25GB. This is the virtual HD file that you can move from system to system. There is also some configuration options at ~/Library/VirtualBox/Machines that you could move over but you don't have to move it. If you don't, you'll have to create a new VM on your second machine but instead of creating a new HD, you tell VBox to use an existing one (the one you mover over).

Now, the location of the VM I listed above is for one I created pre VB 4.0. I mention that because it appears that 4.0 defaults to a different directory for some reason.
 
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I'm on Snow Leopard with VMWare running Windows 7. No problems for me whatsoever. I don't know how much of a ram-hog RHEL 6.0 is but you can dedicate more/less ram to it under settings.
 

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