The virtualization world is not only for Windows and its name is not only VMWare. Specially since the migration of Apple's Macs to the Intel x86 platform, that kind of software has seen in the Cupertino computers a new and fresh market to exploit. And one of the software pieces who has built one of the best virtuaization products for the Macs has been Parallels Desktop.

Altough the Windows virtualization offered by Parallels is pretty nice (I'm still impressed of the Coherence Mode and I can't wait to test the new 3D support features of the last version), it has also support for other Operating Systems such as Linux. And because Ubuntu is at this moment one of the most popular Linux distributions, a lot of people (including myself) have tried to install it in a virtual image on a Mac.

Unfortunately, the latest Ubuntu version, 7.04, aka Feisty Fawn, seems to have some problems installing on Parallels. The most important one is that the Live and installer CD will simply not boot correctly, showing a "Black Screen of Death" when loading the frame buffered splash screen.

But don't worry, everything should be fine if you choose Solaris and Other Solaris as a OS Type and OS Version respectively when creating the virtual machine. Simply boot the Live CD, install the Linux distribution and when it asks you to reboot, shut down, change the virtual machine type to Linux and "Other 2.6 Linux" and it's done! Enjoy the wonderful open source operating system on your Mac OS!