Installing Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake under Parallels Desktop is really easy to do so here’s a few pointers how to do it and to customise it to be easier to use via the mac keyboard:
Now the one thing that I found a little annoying with the newly installed ubuntu is that it defaults to a maximum resolution of 1024×768 which hardly makes best use of the full resolution of the MacBook Pro or indeed the larger resolution of your MacBook etc. So to remedy this I though I should be able to simply edit the xorg.conf file found at /etc/X11/xorg.conf, however doing this did not work at all. The available resolutions do not change from what had existed before.
Then when I was double checking my edits to the xorg.conf file I noticed this note:
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
So I ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg from the ubuntu terminal. This runs the command line configuration tool for xorg. When going through the options I selected the default “vesa” driver (I wouldn’t recommend deviating from this). In the next step I was able to choose the resolutions that I wanted. I added both 1440×900 and 1280×800 but once I had restarted the X server, Ctrl+Alt+backspace the Ubuntu VM jumped straight to the 1440×900 resolution. This is perfect for full-screen use. In trying to change the resolution down to 1280×800 which is more ideal for use of the VM in a window I found that every time the OS reverted to the 1440×900 resolution. Thus it would appear that for now that you will only be able to achieve the maximum resolution that you make available from the configuration tool. If you like the full screen mode then feel free to set the resolution to match your mac and the you can set the VM to always use full-screen mode when you launch. Great for convincing linux buffs that you just splashed out on a mac only to rip out OSX and run Ubuntu!
Once again like using windows under Parallels if you live in the UK you will need to set the keyboard to an American layout to better match that of the mac. Even when you have done that you will find that some keys don’t work as expected for example the backticks and tilde key are mapped to < and > . To fix this and the to re-map the apple key it’s possible to use a tool called xmodmap which allows you to create new key mappings.
After a while experimenting with this I came up with the following keymap file:
!this sorts out the apple key+backspace to do delete
keycode 22 = BackSpace Terminate_Server Delete
!map tilde and grave
keycode 94 = grave asciitilde
!maps apple key to ctrl
remove Control = Control_L
keycode 115 = Control_L
keycode 37 = Control_L
add Control = Control_L
If you want to use this you will need to add it to a file called ~/.xmodmaprc then you can test it by running xmodmap ~/.xmodmaprc. When you logout and log back in you will be asked if you wish to load the modmap file. When this happens you will need to move the file across to be loaded everytime X starts up.
There’s more work that can be done with the keyboard but this is certainly a step in the right direction. Ideally I would properly map a key for the right mouse button though I normally use an external mouse so this is less of a problem. Also alt+(1-0) need to be mapped to the correct keys. Alt+3 should be # whereas at the moment you need to use shift+3 for #.
Hopefully it won’t be long before there is a “Parallels Tools” package for linux so that you don’t have to press Ctrl+Alt to switch from the VM to mac as well as having better support for the clipboard between host and VM. This is planned, so hopefully we won’t have too long to wait.