Ubuntu Linux under Parallels

Parallels is a non-free virtualisation software that allows you to run Windows or Linux under Mac OS X: I'm not talking about dual booting (i.e. a side by side installation, with you deciding which OS you want to load at boot time). What happens here is that you actually run the guest OS at almost native speed in a window of your Mac. Furthermore, you have facilities like copying/pasting from one OS to another, or synchronising folders and so on. Really good if you want to take the best of both worlds (Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux, in my case). 

Installing Parallels is really easy from the installation cd.

Installing Ubuntu 7.10 as a guest OS is not hard. Follow this how-to from Parallels support forum.

Caveats:

• In my case, I had to select Bridged Ethernet to get an internet connection under Ubuntu (this is something you can change easily once the installation is done: stop the Ubuntu Linux virtualisation and then go to Edit>Virtual Machine and set Network Adapter to be Bridget Ethernet)
• Don't forget to upgrade to the latest Parallels version and to install the Parallels Tools
• Copy/Paste and Sinchronisation work well if the guest OS is Windows. It will be supported soon for Ubuntu Linux. 

Update: I've been in contact with one of Parallels developers. First of all, he pointed me to this summary of Parallels Tools for Linux. Second he told that Parallel Tools is not yet compatible with Ubuntu 7.0.4. It's expected to be soon compatible.