Parallels vs VMware

Parallels Pros

• Very cheap, $50 compared to several hundred dollars for VMware
  
• Can extend disk partition (it would appear - VMware can't extend past the max size you specify on partition creation)
  

Parallels Cons

• Bridged networking only works with Wired ethernet, not with Wireless adaptors
  
• Parallels tools not supported on Linux (equivalent VMware tools is)
  
• Only one network interface in guest OS supported (not really important for home use, but handy at work)
  

Unfortunately lack of support for wireless adaptors rules Parallels out for me so I'll have to stick to rebooting into the Linux partition if I really want to. I could try VMware player again - my previous attempt just didn't seem to work at all well, although I forget what the exact problem was now...

I've also tried coLinux at various times. Before I reinstalled my laptop I did have it all working (ie with networking) however I haven't managed that since - so that rules it out as a useful system.

Update:

Microsoft have just released Virtual PC 2004 as a free download so I have that a go. It's rubbish. Well, I started trying to install xubuntu 6.06 and it couldn't successfully display the installation screen - and seemed to use 90%+ CPU time whatever little it was doing. So that's come off.

So then I thought I'd give VMware player another go since I couldn't remember what was wrong with it the first time - and lo and behold it works brilliantly. I've got xubuntu 6.06 which someone helpfully made available just yesterday. It all runs nicely, networking works once I'd uninstalled Parallels, and what's more you can resize the VMware window and your Linux desktop resizes to match - oddly not a feature I remember seeing in Workstation - I'll have to look harder next week.

So VMware wins after all, as long as you've got somewhere to build the images then the free player can't be beat for most uses.