Lion-Optimized VMware Fusion 4 Debuts with Over 90 New Features

There's a discount code that knocks $10 off or £6.57 if you're in the UK - it should work for other currencies too.

Use FUSION20

For UK users it brings it down to £26.28 but there's VAT to go on top :(
Final UK price is £30.22

Apparently, all those artists were using the wrong software platform. When you need Windows to run a mission critical application, then Linux is NOT the right choice for you. Whatever ran on those Linux boxes probably would also have run on Windows or could have been written for Windows in the first place. Except for trying hard to not use what everyone else in the world uses was probably the only motivation for going with Linux in the first place, and that alone is not a good enough reason.

Sigh. That's perhaps the most crazy statement I've read today.

When you have several hundred workstations, over a thousand HPC render machines - Windows tends to become a bit pricey. For VFX, Linux *is* the industry standard platform. 95% of the standard 3D modelling and 2D/3D compositing systems run on Linux. You must remember that SGI's IRIX was the dominant OS of that industry for a long time until commodity hardware and Linux took hold and replaced it. SGIs soon became bricks and doorstops.

Photoshop was one of the rare exceptions. Disney and a few other facilities contributed funds to the Wine project to develop it sufficiently to allow Photoshop to run well enough under Linux using the Wine system. Ultimately as hardware got cheaper, VMs were a better solution. There was no other application - open source or commercial that could match Photoshop's feature set. There are one or two other products that required Windows. These were used by a very small number of artists out of the several hundred coming and going through the facility.

You're doing NOBODY a favor by adding unnecessary complexity to a system. Having to instal a VM to run a mission critical application only shows that you made a poor choice. In my book, VMs are only acceptable on developer machines or when you need to make sure that a client system meets certain security and quality standards.

I work for a web hosting firm now. I'd say the majority of all production web sites and applications that we and our customers are running are running on virtual machines. I've been using VMs now in live production environments for years and I couldn't disagree more with your statements.

Martyn

I've never seen the reason for a VM running Windows on a Mac because the price is almost the same as just buying a low-end laptop with Windows 7.

For school, I needed windows and looked into Parallels and realized that for a few dollars more, I could just buy a separate Toshiba laptop. At least this allows for redundancy because if one computer breaks, I have another.

With a VM, if your Mac breaks, it breaks and that's it.

serious LOL

VMware 4 is about $50 i got win 7 for about the same, so you tell me where I can get a $100 laptop??

In my book, VMs are only acceptable on developer machines or when you need to make sure that a client system meets certain security and quality standards.

Good thing we're not all you. :rolleyes:

A lot of movie editing/artwork is done on alternative platforms. Breaking Microsoft's stranglehold on the industry would help bolster innovation some. They have turned the PC industry into a stagnant cesspool. You're preaching stagnation and immobility. "Hey it works on Windows only, use Windows!". Yeah, way to spur innovation and development.

The laptop I bought was $299 (no tax or shipping charge). Parallels was almost $200. Why pay to put Windows on an existing computer when you can have redundancy by having Windows on a separate laptop?

Virtual Box is 0$. Parallels is 90$.

Carrying only 1 computer with all the tools on it, and be able to interact with your data with software on any OS at the same time : Priceless.

Sorry you can't see the advantages in virtualizations.

Having a VM on a computer IS having two computers. I don't see how a VM with a second desktop operating system running in it actually makes life easier or less complex.

Let's see :

- Share data with cables or external media or a network - Check
- Copy/paste without having to use a network based clipboard server that might or might not work properly - Check
- Carrying only 1 physical computer around with all my software - Check again.

Yep, a VM is just like a 2nd computer, except for those little annoyances of actual owning 2 physical computers. :rolleyes:

I still firmly believe that when you need a VM with a second desktop OS in it, then you are basically walking with a crutch and your preferred host operating system was not the right choice for you.

My VM is for work. My computer insists on using proprietary technologies that only have Windows client. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't even need the VM. No, my work laptop is not an option (a huge hulking Dell Lattitude... I'm not carrying that POS around).

Oh boy

Why would you want to run a virtual machine running lion, if you're already running lion?

If you have to ask, you'll never know.