Anyone running VM Virtualbox in Lion?

Here is the Snow Leopard client (with Rosetta) into Parallels 7 in Lion solution:

I am starting to experiment with VMware Fusion, but so far, I have no experience with VirtualBox.

Here are full Parallels installation instructions:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

etresoft wrote:

...Just do yourselves a favour and upgrade already.

Of course, and buy a new car EVERY year whether you can afford it or not!

But to those who cannot or do not upgrade, because:

1. They have legacy hardware and/or software that cannot be upgraded;

2. They cannot afford the cost to upgrade; and/or

3. They have conversion problems with the current version of their software --

Then running Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) in Parallels 7 (or other workable virtualization) in Lion is an important tool to add to their toolbox!

MlchaelLAX wrote:

Of course, and buy a new car EVERY year whether you can afford it or not!

But to those who cannot or do not upgrade,

...perhaps shouldn't!

I couldn't have said it better myself 🙂

What spirited responses! Also very helpful. As for me, I want to use my old scanner, because it still works, and I still have software for it that works.

It's possible the recovery partition can help me with almost any sort of problem my boot volume might have, but hardware and software demons over the years have made me cautious. Heck, I also have an SD card with Lion 10.7.4 on it that will boot the system for maintenance, should it be needed.

VirtualBox is free, and Parallels was driving me crazy with expensive upgrades and installation challenges. VirtualBox has proven very very easy for me to use, and I like it.

If I turn out to be the guy who gets SL client installed into one on a Mac running Lion, the links that were posted above should help me overcome obstacles. Thanks.

autnagrag wrote:

What spirited responses! Also very helpful. As for me, I want to use my old scanner, because it still works, and I still have software for it that works.

...

If the old software for your old scanner is PowerPC and hence requires Rosetta, you will need access to Snow Leopard.

One of the individuals whom I have helped, carterfromva, posted this testimonial about his frustrations with Lion and his experiences with using Snow Leopard in Parallels 7 in Lion (as a professional photographer, the cost of Parallels was insignificant compared to his continued livelihood -- also I am not sure what installation problems you have had with Parallels; we have not suffered any):

"...my experience in following up on the assistance offered by MichaelLAX has been 100% positive. In addition to solving some huge problems for me, Michael was more than generous with his time expended guiding me through the initial installation and set up.

I’m now running Snow Leopard with full Rosetta function within Parallels Desktop on an OS X 10.7.3 Lion system. It works!

For those needing Rosetta after upgrading to Lion, some have suggested continuing to run Snow Leopard on a separate partition or on an external drive. This might be a satisfactory, albeit cumbersome, solution for some users, but I believe this will work only on Macs which have not had Lion preinstalled. I also have an old G4 PowerMac still running Tiger OS X 10.4 11 (and not upgradeable), but this machine won’t last forever. The above “solution” will be compatible with a new Mac purchased in the future.

I’m the professional landscape photographer to whom Michael referred in some previous posts (Carter E. Gowl Landscape Photography).

In early March I began investigating the implications of Apple’s iCloud (and Lion) changes mainly because of concerns about maintaining my @mac.com email address. I have no reason to doubt the assurances of some posters on these forums that such mail will continue to work with Mac Mail in Snow Leopard after making manual account settings changes – even after June 30th. On the other hand I received four different opinions from the four Apple representatives I recently queried about this issue.

I depend on some legacy PPC only software for my business – software which will never be upgraded to Universal or Intel versions and for which there are no substitutes or alternatives. Many high grade film scanners were long ago discontinued, or the manufacturers have exited that business. I also have many old AppleWorks drawing documents which cannot be opened in Pages. The Lion compatible (Intel) versions of some essential utilities for my Epson 4880 printer were released by Epson last December (Epson LFP Remote Panel and Epson Printer Watcher), but these updates are missing many of the useful functions of the previous PPC versions.

From June 15th until late September I’ll be in a remote location in Montana where dial-up is the only practical option. I’ve had to purchase a new modem (ZOOM 3095) since my Apple USB modem (purchased from the Apple Store in June 2009) won’t work on MacBook Pros with Lion installed (even when running the above Parallels “solution”). The “Safe Place” software that I had been using for years to store 189 encrypted passwords is PPC only. It required a full day to transcribe this data into the newly purchased 1Password application.

I could provide several further examples. This entire experience, except for my contact with MichaelLAX, has left a bitter taste and consumed an inordinate amount of time. Most of my friends and acquaintances who are Mac users have been completely unaware of these pending issues. I think that subsequent to June 30th there will be many who are completely surprised and a resulting epic PR fiasco."

The bickering over Snow Leopard in a VM is pointless. It was an old feature meant for Xserves. Nobody every used it because nobody every bought any Xserves. Apple has no intention of supporting hacked-up configurations just so people can run some old, unsupported hardware or software. Just do yourselves a favour and upgrade already.

I have some ten years of Appleworks documents that among others contain hundreds of software licence details, service log/pass data, and personal work, spread among dozens of places on various supports.

I just need a way to start Appleworks in Rosetta, and no, I don't want to rebuy or steal a Lion iWorks, nor even spend hours in translating. It's a constraint you may not have or may not understand.

So, I managed to create a normal, plain vanilla SL VM in (for now) Virtualbox.

My only issue with it presently is that I can't deal with file associations like Parallels does (i. e., allocate Appleworks documents to "Appleworks.app in Virtualbox" seamlessly), so the process of opening an old document is still indirect: I have to launch Virtualbox first, and then drag said document on the desktop which is shared on the SL VM, and then launch it from there.

Any information about better integration either in Parallels or Fusion VMs would be welcome: I searched this specific issue to no avail, didn't find yet. I own a "previous" version of Parallels, and would consider upgrade or switch to Fusion if this specific point is really better.

Also, while completely offtopic, among the conclusions of this whole story for me is that definitely I'll never anymore record important info within proprietary formats. Indeed this goes to the extent I am presently considering abandoning excellent softwares, like my book librarian holding hundreds of books, illustrations and quotes, Spotlight-searchable and all. That it can export 90% of my data to an open format -my previous criterion- is obviously not enough.

This is at this time an immense issue for me, almost ethical (am I spitting at the face of private developers, who owns me, which Cloud do I want, etc.), and believe me it's not a 'just-buy-the-upgrade' or a fancy 'yes-I-wanna-go-Linux' thingie.

[deleted: will be reposted later]

The ability to double-click a file and then have it launch Parallels and its corresponding application is limited to Windows and not implemented in virtualized Mac OS X.

However, Parallels 7 does support the Shared Folder in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. This gives you direct access to your data in the Lion environment. From there you can double click your AppleWorks files to launch and open directly into AppleWorks (right-click the data file to bring up the Open With... menu and you can see it will open the file with AppleWorks):

As I have expressed in my Cautionary Notes #1:

Thank you MichaelLax!

Indeed my process is the following at this moment:

- find the 'fossil file' to be retrieved on the Lion mac

- drag it to the desktop

- launch Virtualbox, which is set to connect to the Lion machine and show its (shared) desktop as an open folder there

- see the fossil file in the folder, launch it (say, Appleworks starts), retrieve data, potentially update and save (with the effect the original file is updated straight in Lion, not on a virtual disk)

- quit Virtualbox, put the fossil file back where it was.

My main worry (but it's just a worry) is, Virtualbox doesn't transfer clipboards between guest Snow Leopard and Lion host, and won't go up to the efficiency it shows for MS Windows integration (where you just have to double-click the win file inside host to automatically trigger all the rest).

Can you tell me if clipboards are transmitted in Parallels for a Lion host / Snow Leo guest pair?

As concerns the "better automation", I wonder whether a couple of scripts wouldn't solve it: for instance, in Lion, maybe

- I can trigger a script through a file association ("open all Appleworks files with... Virtualbox"),

- then this script starts Virtualbox and copies the original document to a shared folder,

- then inside Virtualbox's Snow Leopard another script is running and just waits for a file to appear in the same shared folder,

- this second SL script then launches the said file...

Somehow I stil have to handle the going back if the file is updated, but my present need really is just reading the file contents, and sometimes copying it.

I suspect the same strategy would work with Parallels.

Any scripting specialists welcome ;-)

Hervé S. wrote:

Thank you MichaelLax!

Indeed my process is the following at this moment:

...

Can you tell me if clipboards are transmitted in Parallels for a Lion host / Snow Leo guest pair?

As concerns the "better automation", I wonder whether a couple of scripts wouldn't solve it: ...

Hervé:

Although Parallels Tools does implement copy and paste for Windows, it appears that it is not implemented for installations of Mac OS X. If someone else has a different experience, please jump in, but I have not been able to copy and paste.

I do not understand why you must do so much with your "process:" As I suggested, keep your fossil files where ever they are currently located and just access them within the Parallels Snow Leopard environment through the Shared Folder, as you would any file off a server from your client computer.

You can then modify them as needed and do a Save or Save As... as is your preference, back to the original location or new location, as needed.

No dragging nor duplication of fossil files is needed.

I will leave automation to others...

GOOD LUCK!