running boot-camp ubuntu-server virtualised

Hey all,

I'm a linux user looking at switching to mac. I'm thinking of getting a 13" MBP and wanted to float my plans for my setup to see if any of you mac experts have any advice, pointers or feedback for me.

I'll need to run a virtualised ubuntu-server as I'm a primarily a web developer and require quite specific setup & packages to run my projects. I also need to be developing on ubuntu-server as this is also my production server and I need to the setup to be as similar as possible.

The problem I have with virtaulising a server is that I've yet to find a god solution for modifying the code on the virtualised machine. I've played around with Eclipse's RSE plugin which connects via SSH, it works but crashes if the virtual machine turns off / isn't running. I've tried sshfs which again isn't ideal. I've tried samba shares but eclipse doesn't like that.

Whilst looking in to vmware & parallels I read that they can actually run your boot-camp partitioned OS. I think this might solve my problem of coding on a virtaulised machine as if I run ubuntu-server via bootcamp then I can access the filesystem directly from OS X (even when not running). I'd need to install macfuse so I could modify the ext4 filesystem. I could then code directly to servers filesystem without the actually running the OS. When I need to test I could just boot up vmware or parallels and run the bootcamp partition.

My question is would this work? Is there a better way I could do it?

If anyone has experience doing similar I'd love to hear how you find it.

Thanks!

So, let me make sure I understand this. You want to write to a non-running OS?

Dysfunction said:

So, let me make sure I understand this. You want to write to a non-running OS?

Click to expand...

I want to write to the boot-camped OS' partition yes. With macfuse I assumed I could read/write to the partitioned filesystem.

Hey just wondering if anyone had any experience or advice about my suggested setup?

(boot-camp'd ubuntu-server, I'll alter code on the ext4 partition directly using macfuse and then I'll use vmware/parallels to run the os when required for testing).

Thanks

Well for one, you can't install Ubuntu server or Ubuntu anything by using Boot Camp. You can certainly create a Boot Camp partition but that's as far as it will go. You would be better off using Disk Utility to create the partition and then manually install Ubuntu server.

And add to that, neither Parallels nor Fusion will virtualize a Boot Camp or other partition that is not Windows.

If you really want to use a Mac to do all that, I suggest you take a look at using rEFIt and possibly setting up a triple boot. Lots of info floating around on how to do that.

chscag said:

you can't install Ubuntu server or Ubuntu anything by using Boot Camp.

Click to expand...

chscag said:

neither Parallels nor Fusion will virtualize a Boot Camp or other partition that is not Windows.

Click to expand...

Ah okay, this was the kind of heads-up I was looking for! Guess I'll scrap that plan!

chscag said:

If you really want to use a Mac to do all that, I suggest you take a look at using rEFIt and possibly setting up a triple boot. Lots of info floating around on how to do that.

Click to expand...

I really want to just use one OS for everything (general use & development) so I think I'll go for the simple solution of running a vmware/parallels instance of ubuntu-server. My only annoyance with that setup is that when the virtual machine isn't running the filesystem is inaccessible, but I guess I can live with that.

Thanks for the input.

-- Jimmy