Git + Windows + Parallels + make + msys sh + Go

Git recently made a security fix. Unfortunately, it broke things for a lot of people, including me. Just in case anyone else has a similar obscure setup (and for my own notes), here's how I solved my issue.

My configuration is a bit off the beaten path.

• I am working on a Mac
• I have my git repos in Dropbox
• I use Parallels to build and test on Windows
• I use make to run my go build
• make is using msys sh as its shell

As of 1.18 Go includes vcs info in builds. So when I ran a Go build on Windows, it would fail with:

# cd x:\gsuneido; git status --porcelain
fatal: unsafe repository ('//Mac/Dropbox/gsuneido' is owned by someone else)
To add an exception for this directory, call:
        git config --global --add safe.directory '%(prefix)///Mac/Dropbox/gsuneido'
error obtaining VCS status: exit status 128
        Use -buildvcs=false to disable VCS stamping.

Adding -buildvcs=false did get the builds working, but it seemed ugly to disable a Go feature to work around a Git issue. It also didn't help if I wanted to do other Git commands.

I struggled with adding the safe.directory. I wasn't sure if %(prefix) was literal or was a variable. I also wasn't sure about whether it should be forward slashes or back slashes and how many (a perpetual issue on Windows). And I wasn't sure about the quoting. Eventually, I just edited my .gitconfig with a text editor.

Here's what worked:

[safe]
	directory = %(prefix)///Mac/Dropbox/gsuneido

Now I could do git commands.

But my build still failed with the same error!?

make is using msys sh as its shell. And sure enough, from within sh, I was back to the same error. git config --global --list didn't show my safe directory. That turned out to be because my home directory from inside sh was different. If I ran git config --global --add safe.directory from within sh, then it created another .gitconfig in /home/andrew. Now I could run git commands from sh, and now my build works.

I'm a little nervous about having multiple .gitconfig files, one on Mac, one for Windows, and one for sh on Windows but I don't have anything critical in there, so hopefully it'll be ok.

I'm all for security fixes, and I try to keep up to date, but it's definitely frustrating when it breaks stuff.

Back to Work on jSuneido

I fixed a couple of bugs and now all our application tests pass, both standalone on jSuneido, and client-server (with the Windows cSuneido client).

But quite slowly - about 4 times slower running client-server with jSuneido as the server instead of cSuneido. I'm not surprised it's slower, but 4 times seems like a lot. Strangely, when I run the tests under jSuneido standalone (i.e. not client-server) they run about the same speed as cSuneido client-server (which is still about half the speed of cSuneido standalone). So presumably the difference is the client-server networking.

I've been testing with the server running on OS X (since that's where I develop) and the client running under Parallels. Maybe the networking slows down the Java test so I decided to try running the Java server on Windows as well as the client.

First I had to remember how to package up jSuneido as a jar file. I've done this before, but not for a while. In Eclipse you use Export > Runnable Jar File.

Next, I found I didn't have Java on my current Windows 7 Parallels VM. I downloaded and installed the JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

I got some weird errors until I went back and rebuilt my jar file with "Extract required libraries into generated JAR" (instead of "Package required libraries into generated JAR"). I'm not sure exactly what the difference is, or why it makes a difference to running my code. I made a half-hearted attempt to find it in the Eclipse Help but didn't get anywhere.

Finally I got it running, but it was soooooo slow! Instead of the IDE starting more or less instantly, it took more like a minute. Ouch.

I figured it might help to run it with the -server option (that's the default on 64 bit Java, which is what I'm running on OS X). But I discovered the JRE doesn't include the server version. Grrrr. It comes with the JDK (Java Development Kit). That seems odd to me, but that appears to be the way it is.

So I installed the JDK, but the default Java that's on the path is still the JRE one. So now I have two separate installations of Java with the "wrong" one on the path. Sigh.

I ignored that problem and used the absolute path to run the JDK one to get the server version. But it's still just as slow. Argh!

The only thing I can think of is that jar files are zip files and working with zip files (or other compressed archives) has always seemed painfully slow under Parallels. I'm not sure why. Maybe decompression normally takes advantage of CPU features that aren't accessible under Parallels? Or the anti-virus program slowing it down? (I'm using Microsoft's anti-virus.)

The next step is to try it on my Windows machine at work to eliminate the Parallels issue. Or to make a simple Java client so I can try it client-server all on OS X without Windows or Parallels.

And if it's really that slow, then it's time to do some more profiling and see what I can do to speed it up.

Windows 7 on Parallels on Mac

I just installed Windows 7 (Professional 32 bit) on Parallels (4.0.3846) on my iMac (OS X 10.6.1)

The install went smoothly and relatively quickly.

You still can't use Aero (fancy effects like transparency) under Parallels but that doesn't bother me too much.

My first challenge was that I couldn't see the task bar in Coherence mode (mixed Mac and Windows). A quick Google search found other people with the same problem. Eventually I discovered that there is a menu option to show it (Applications > Show Windows Task Bar). I wonder if it wouldn't be better to show it by default and let the people who want to hide it go hunting for the menu option.

My network icon in the taskbar shows a yellow exclamation mark warning, with a tooltip of "No internet access", but I seem to be able to access the internet fine through Internet Explorer and Windows Update worked fine. When I run the troubleshooter it tells me everything is fine and asks what my problem is. I guess I just ignore the warning. Hopefully Parallels will fix this at some point.

Windows 7 has dropped the Quick Launch bar. Instead you can "pin" things to the task bar. Except that I couldn't. I tried dragging and using the right click context menu. No errors or anything, it just didn't work. More Google searching showed other people with the same problem but no clear solution. Someone suggested setting up a new user account. This didn't really make sense, but I tried it and it worked.

I guess the default initial Administrator account doesn't let you pin anything to the task bar. It would be nice if it gave you some kind of message.

If the default initial Administrator account is not a regular account, why doesn't the Windows install process create a regular account for you? Maybe because of installing via Parallels "unattended" method? I'll have to ask someone who has installed Windows 7 on a PC.

One of the few features that the Windows task bar had that the Mac OS X dock didn't was the ability to toggle between showing and hiding windows by clicking on the task bar icon. (A Windows Feature I'd Like on the Mac) Sadly, this feature seems to be gone in Windows 7. (Unless there is a way to enable it somewhere.)

I've been using Vista on Parallels, but I probably would have been better off with XP because it needs less resources. (That's why Netbooks come with XP.) I'm hoping Windows 7 will be less demanding than Vista. (It's supposed to be.)

Eclipse Tip for Windows and Mac Users

Switching back and forth between Windows and Mac, my fingers find it hard to remember whether copy/cut/paste/undo/redo are with the control key or the command key.

In Eclipse you can configure the keyboard so you can add the control versions of these (as well as the command versions).

I also added home and end (Line Start/End).

One nice feature of Windows under Parallels on the Mac is that it lets you use either command or control.

Parallels Clipboard Problem

I don't often copy and paste between Windows under Parallels and OS X. But it seems like every time I try, it doesn't work.

I've discovered one fix is to restart Windows. (Just suspending and resuming is not sufficient.)

I'm guessing the problem is that the Parallels Tools that run within Windows are getting messed up.

This is annoying because restarting Windows is not the speediest process.

This is on Parallels 4.0.3540 November 22, 2008 running Vista.

Thank Goodness

I was excited when I got to the point where I could start up a Suneido client from my Java Suneido server.

But ... as I soon realized, it was painfully slow. I wasn't panicking since it's still early stages, but it was nagging me. What if, like many people say, Java is just too slow?

I kept forgetting to try it at work on my Windows PC since at home I'm going though the Parallels virtual machine.

Finally I remembered, and ... big sigh of relief ... it's fast on my Windows PC. I haven't done any benchmarks but starting up the IDE seems roughly the same as with the cSuneido server.

I'm not quite sure why it's so slow with Parallels - that's a bit of a nuisance since I work on this mostly at home on my Mac. Maybe something to do with the networking? But at least I don't have a major speed issue (yet).

I'm also still running jSuneido from within Eclipse. That might make a difference too. One of these days I'll have to figure out how to run it outside the IDE!

Flailing with Parallels 4

The new version of Parallels is out. I bought it, downloaded it, and installed it. They've changed the virtual machine format so you have to convert them. The slowest part of this process was making a backup (my Windows Vista VM is over 100 gb).

Everything worked fine, and I should have left well enough alone, but during the upgrade process I noticed that my 30 gb virtual disk file was 80 gb. So I thought I'd try the Compressor tool. (I'd never used it before.)

I got this message:

Parallels Compressor is unable to compress the virtual disk files,
because the virtual machine has snapshots, or its disks are either
plain disks or undo disks. If you want to compress the virtual disk
file(s), delete all snapshots using Snapshot Manager and/or disable
undo disks in the Configuration Editor.

So I opened the Snapshot Manager and started deleting. I deleted the most recent one, but when I tried to delete the next one it froze. I waited a while, but nothing seemed to be happening and the first deletion had been quick. I ended up force quitting Parallels, although I hated doing this when my virtual machine was running since that's caused problems in the past.

But when I restarted Parallels it was still "stuck". Most of the menu options were grayed out. When I tried to quit I got:

Cannot close the virtual machine window.
The operation of deleting a virtual machine snapshot is currently in
progress. Wait until it is complete and try again.

I force quit Parallels again. I tried deleting the snapshot files but that didn't help. Force quit again.

I had, thankfully, backed up the upgraded vm before these problems. But it took an hour or more to copy the 100 gb to or from my Time Capsule. (That seems slow for a hardwired network connection, but I guess it is a lot of data.) So first I tried to restore just some of the smaller files, figuring the big disk images were probably ok. This didn't help.

Next I tried deleting the Parallels directory from my Library directory, thinking that might be where it had stored the fact that it was trying to delete a snapshot. This didn't help either.

So I bit the bullet and copied the entire vm from the backup. An hour later I start Parallels again, only to find nothing has changed - same problem. Where the heck is the problem?

The only other thing I can think of is the application itself so I start reinstalling. Part way through I get a message to please quit the Parallels virtual machine. But it's not running??? I look at the running processes and sure enough there's a Parallels process. Argh!

In hindsight, the message that "an operation" was "in progress" should have been enough of a clue. But I just assumed that force quitting the application would kill all of its processes. I'm not sure why it didn't. Maybe Parallels "detached" this process for some reason? I also jumped to the (incorrect) conclusion that there was a "flag" set somewhere that was making it think the operation was in progress.

If this had been on Windows, one of the first things I would have tried is rebooting, which would have fixed this. But I'm not used to having to do that on OS X. I probably didn't need to reboot this time either, killing the leftover process likely would have been sufficient. But just to be safe I did.

Sure enough, that solved the problem, albeit after wasting several hours. Once more, now that everything was functional, I should have left well enough alone, but I can be stubborn and I still had that oversize disk image.

This time I shut down the virtual machine before using the Snapshot Manager and I had no problems deleting the snapshots.

But when I restart the vm and run Compressor, I get exactly the same message. I have no snapshots, and "undo disks" is disabled. I'm not sure what "plain" disks are, but mine are "expandable" (which is actually a misleading name since they have a fixed maximum size) and the help says I should be able to compress expandable drives. I have no idea why it refuses to work.

While I'm in the help I see you can also compress drives with the Image Tools so I try that and finally I have success. My disk image file is now down to 30 gb. I'm not sure it was worth the stress though!

A Successful Leap for Leopard

I upgraded my MacBook to Leopard a while ago but I waited to upgrade my main MacMini.

With Leopard updates for my main apps (Parallels and Lightroom) I decided it was time to take the plunge. The upgrade went smoothly, although it seemed pretty slow - several hours. I'm not sure why it takes that long.

As a safety precaution I used SuperDuper to backup each machine before upgrading.

So far I haven't had any major problems. The first time I started Parallels I got the following error:


I found a blog post which said the MacFUSE included in Parallels is old and suggested installing the latest MacFuse. This seemed to do the trick, but:

• the error message seems backwards - the operating system was new, MacFUSE was old
• why didn't the Parallels update for Leopard include the required new version of MacFUSE?
• why did I have to get the solution from some user instead of from Parallels? even if the user community discovered the solution, wouldn't it make sense for Parallels to post it? (in fairness, maybe they have, but I didn't find it if they did)
  

Note: This problem doesn't stop Parallels from starting, it just stops it from mounting the Windows C drive in OS X

Now that Spotlight with Leopard lets you run the top application match by hitting enter, I was able to uninstall Google Desktop. (Nothing against Google Desktop, I just prefer to keep things simple if I can) (see my previous post)

Leopard also seems to have solved the issue of automatically mounting network drives. (see my previous post) so I was able to remove the login script I had created to do this, which was nice because it took a long time (why?) and slowed down logging in.

I do have a new complaint about OS X. The Finder doesn't have an option to show hidden files. I can understand hiding them by default, so does Windows. But at least Windows gives you a way to show them. This came up when I went to copy the .svn folder from a backup. It is possible to change Finder via a command line, but on top of not being user friendly, this also requires restarting Finder. This seems like an obvious weak point. Is there someone in Apple who refuses to recognize that you might occasionally want to see these files?

I'm still having problems with accessing my 4gb USB thumb drive from Parallels. At first I blamed this on the U3 software that came installed on it, but I removed this and reformatted and I'm still having problems. It works fine on my Windows machine at work. My current guess is that Parallels doesn't quite handle 4gb USB drives. The strange part is that it works fine, but after a short time it will hang during copying from it, and Windows Explorer can no longer access it. My 1gb USB thumb drive continues to work fine.

Ok, back to Ubuntu on Parallels. I copied the virtual machine that I had created on my MacBook over to my MacMini and started it up. No display problem, but the same problem with the Parallels Tool cd image showing garbled file names. Strangely I can't find anybody else with this particular problem. While flailing a bit more I rebooted the VM and lo and behold the Parallels Tools cd image had the right file names. I installed them and restarted X windows. It appears to work! One of the most noticeable features is being able to move the mouse seamlessly between OS X and the VM. I followed the same process on the MacBook and it also worked (although I could have sworn I tried rebooting before). So I appear to be back in business with Ubuntu (albeit starting from scratch with a new VM).

All in all, a successful day!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Or should that be One Step Forward, Two Steps back?

Yesterday I was back to working on the multi-threaded ACE Suneido server. It started off really well. I got the server actually running, could connect and disconnect, and make simple requests and get responses. A very good milestone.

The obvious next step is to try to start up a Suneido client IDE using the new server. This is a big jump because even to start up requires a large number of requests of different kinds. I didn't really expect it to work, but programmers are eternal optimists :-)

I got a variety of weird errors and memory faults - not surprising. But amongst these errors was one that said something like "GC collecting from unknown thread". Oh yeah, I knew this was going to be an issue but I'd pushed it to the back of my mind. The garbage collector needs to know about all the threads in order to take their stacks and registers etc. into account. The way the Boehm GC normally does this is by requiring you to call their create thread function which is a wrapper around the OS one.

The problem is, ACE is creating the threads. I found where ACE calls create thread and thankfully there was a single point I could modify to call the GC version. But, I was using ACE via a DLL which means it can't call functions in the main program (where the GC one is).

The obvious solution is to not use a DLL, to statically link in the ACE code. Sounds easy. I even found the option "static_libs=1" that would build static libraries. But it doesn't work. It builds a static library alright, but when I try to link it into Suneido I get a bunch of "multiple definitions" and "undefined references". Suspiciously, many of the names were "_imp_..." which seems a lot like the way DLL's work. My guess would be that "static_libs=1" isn't working fully, which isn't too surprising given that the "normal" usage is with shared libraries (DLL). In software, "taking the path less traveled" is often a recipe for frustration.

I started digging into the maze of headers, configs, makefiles, and ifdefs but I ran out of time. Presumably it's solvable. You can see why people like to use things like .Net or Java where at least some of these low level issues are handled for you.

At the same time as I was working on this, I downloaded Ubuntu 7.10 and created a new Parallels VM (on my MacBook while I was working on my main machine). I used the alternate cd with the text based installer as recommended by other people. It went quite smoothly (except for crashing OS X the first time I started the install), and no display problems. But when I tried to install the Parallels Tools, the disk image appeared "corrupted" - only a single file and its name was random garbage characters. I tried rebooting the VM, restarting Parallels, and rebooting the MacBook but it didn't help. I searched on the web but didn't find any references to this problem. I have upgraded my MacBook to Leopard (the new version of OS X) so the problem may be related to that. When I get time I'll try running this VM on my Mac Mini which hasn't been upgraded to Leopard yet.

Still Problems with Ubuntu 7.10 on Parallels on Mac

Larry has been patiently trying to help me with the network problem on my Ubuntu virtual machine (see the comments on Ubuntu on Parallels on Mac) He may have even found the problem.

But when I applied the fix and rebooted I was back to the problems from More Fun With Ubuntu on Parallels - unable to boot because the X display won't start. I did some more thrashing around and some more web searching. Lots of people seem to have this problem and there are various proposed solutions. I wonder if these "solutions" aren't really solutions - it just happened to work as it does for me occasionally. Frustratingly, lots of people also appear to not have this problem - it works fine for them.

This is on a Mac (mini) so you can't blame non-standard hardware. Ubuntu is one of the most common (if not the most common) version of Linux. I haven't loaded up OS X with a lot of junk software. So why am I still faced with these frustrating issues? I don't want to have to be an X Windows expert and mess around with xorg.conf. Running in a virtual machine adds some complexity, but it also reduces the complexity since the virtual machine is more "standard" than real machines.

I don't have a lot installed in my Ubuntu so I am going to try a fresh install. At least with VM's this doesn't mean I have to wipe out my previous one. It would be nice if Parallels had a prebuilt Ubuntu 7.10 VM but they only have 7.04. I could go back to 7.04 but sooner or later I'll want to update.

Some of my recurring frustrations are, no doubt, due to my staying to close to the "bleeding edge". But, (a) I want to keep up with the latest - that's part of my business, and (b) not doing updates has it's own problems with incompatibility, security, etc. and leaves you facing even scarier "big" updates, albeit not so often.

More Fun With Ubuntu on Parallels

I started my Ubuntu virtual machine to get my networking file to continue looking into the network not starting automatically.

A notice came up about upgrading from 7.04 to 7.10. Without really thinking about it (stupid) I went ahead and ran the upgrade. It worked fine till it was finished and it restarted and the X display couldn't start. So I did what I should have done before I started the upgrade and I googled for problems with 7.10 on Parallels. Sure enough, lots of other people were having the same problem. There were various suggestions of how to work around the problem but there didn't seem to be a consensus. Parallels themselves seem to be avoiding the issue. I followed one of the suggestions and booted in recovery mode, which took me to a terminal window but I wasn't sure where to go from there. Then I tried booting the older kernel which seemed to start ok. Then I tried re-installing the Parallels tools (another suggestion). It ended up with the same problem of not being able to restart the display. I stopped and restarted the machine and let it boot normally and it worked!? I have no idea what that means. Is it fixed? Which part of my thrashing around was helpful? Or is the problem intermittent and I just happened to get lucky?

I'd had enough for one day so I just suspended the machine and left it.

By the way, it still has the same problem of not starting the networking automatically. I guess it was too much to hope that problem would go away by itself.

Ubuntu on Parallels on Mac

I just installed Ubuntu on my Mac under Parallels using these instructions:

How to install Ubuntu 7.04 in OS X using Parallels Desktop 3.0

It seemed to go smoothly. Of course, Ubuntu immediately wanted to download a pile of updates, but that worked ok.

The only problem is that you seem to have to manually turn on the networking within Ubuntu every time you boot it up. The instructions mentioned this, but I thought it was just during installation. There may be a fix, I haven't looked yet. I don't think it's a big deal because normally I just suspend the virtual machines rather than shutdown and restart them. Hmmm... that's assuming the network stays turned on after being suspended, I haven't actually tested that.

Parallels has a pre-installed Ubuntu virtual machine, but the downloads were very slow so I gave up. But I should be able to take the virtual machine I've now created and copy it from my Mac Mini to my Mac Book.

Aside from curiosity, one of my motivations for installing Ubuntu is to get back to working on porting Suneido to Linux. I should be able to do a lot of that natively under OS X but I assume I'll still want to work under Linux as well.

More Mac & Parallels Printing Problems

This is a continuation of the saga I've posted about before.

Recap: I had moved my Epson R1800 printer to Firewire to free up the USB port. But then I found out Parallels doesn't virtualize Firewire.

So I moved the printer back to USB. Things seem ok. Some time later I go to print from Lightroom and I find that I'm back to the CUPS+Gutenprint printer driver which doesn't support all the printer features. I'm not sure how that happened since before the USB->Firewire switch it was using the Epson driver.

More time passes and I go to print from Windows under Parallels. The print job goes into the queue and gets stuck. I can't even delete the print job or the printer. I try disconnecting and reconnecting the USB port to the Parallels VM. I try rebooting Windows. I try rebooting the Mac. At some point during this thrashing my print job comes out and the printer deletes. I recreate the printer, thinking that it's now going to work, but my test gets stuck in the queue as before. I thrash some more, but can't seem to hit on whatever combination it was that released that first print job.

I search on the web and find various discussions of various problems more or less related to mine. One person says it takes 5 minutes for his print jobs to emerge. Maybe this was what happened with me - not anything I did while thrashing, just the amount of time I thrashed. It seems bizarre that it would take 5 minutes. What is it doing all that time? And why does it work after whatever it is doing?

I had gotten an error message about the Epson Status Monitor 3 (why 3?) and some of the discussions mentioned this. I tried disabling it and killing it etc. but it didn't seem to make much difference.

The strange thing is that I could swear I had the printer working from Windows via USB before I switched to Firewire. So why doesn't it work now? Changes to Parallels? Who knows.

Eventually I found Finally got Epson Photo R800 printer working in XP VM on the Parallels forums. (an R800 is the narrow carriage version of my R1800) It gave instructions on how to share the printer from OS X and then access it using Bonjour on Windows. I had run across references to this before but they all talked about using a generic postscript driver on Windows which is not what I wanted. I needed to use the Epson driver to access the printers features. But these instructions used the Epson driver.

The instructions were for the printer connected by USB but they mentioned they would likely work with Firewire. Since that's what I really wanted I thought I'd try it. Nope, couldn't get it to work. (no URI for Firewire device?) Back to USB. This time it worked.

The only place where I had problems with the instructions was with choosing the printer type. Bonjour only showed the generic postscript option. I had to choose Have Disk and then find and select my Epson driver.

Several hours later, I think I have the correct, functioning printer setup in both OS X and Windows. And even better, I think I should now be able to use the same method to access the printer from other networked Windows machines.

A few days ago someone suggested buying a MacBook for someone else. I said it probably wasn't a good idea because they'd want to run Windows programs. They said "I thought you could do that now?". Yeah, well, you can, but ... it can get ugly.

Parallels Annoyance

I went to print from Windows running under Parallels on my Mac and it didn't work, although it had in the past. I tried the usual highly intelligent :-) problem solving technique of rebooting (in this case both Windows and the Mac) but it didn't help.

Eventually I remembered that I had switched the printer from USB to Firewire, since the printer (Epson R1800) had come with a Firewire cable and it freed up a USB port.

But ... Parallels doesn't virtualize Firewire, only USB. There are several workarounds but none of them are great since they don't let me use the specific features of the printer.

Now something else made sense. I had wondered why I had an HP postscript printer set up in Windows. I hadn't set it up myself so I assumed some application I had installed had done it, although that didn't make much sense. Now I realize Parallels must have created it as a way to print to Mac printers.

Another workaround is to print to PDF on Windows and then print the PDF from OS X - a bit tedious, but it works.

I may end up moving the printer back to USB, but that'll mean messing with the setup on OS X which I'd rather not have to do.

The reason I wanted to print from Windows was because I was using Canvas, a program that combines many of the capabilities of Photoshop and Illustrator (i.e. both vector and bitmap at the same time). I really like Canvas but it's been somewhat abandoned. The product was bought by ACD who haven't done much with it. There was/is a Mac version but not for Intel, so I'm still using the Windows version. There are rumors of a new Windows version but not Mac. Too bad.

My First Mac

A few days ago I received a Mac Mini I ordered directly from Apple Canada. I could have bought one locally but I was curious about how they're mail order would work.

Although the advertised prices make the mini look relatively cheap, by the time you upgrade the memory and hard disk to reasonable amounts, and add a mouse and keyboard it's ended up almost twice as expensive as a comparable PC.

My first chuckle came when the mouse and keyboard arrived in a box about six times the size of the box the computer came in!

Less of a chuckle when I found that I couldn't use the wireless keyboard and mouse until they were set up - which you couldn't do without a wired usb keyboard and mouse. This wasn't a problem for me since I had spares, but if this was your only computer (or if you only had an older PS2 keyboard/mouse) you'd be pretty frustrated. It might be nice if Apple's web ordering system warned you about this when you ordered a mini with a wireless mouse and/or keyboard.

Other than that, set up was quick and easy. It recognized my Samsung SyncMaster 215TW and set the right resolution automatically - something Windows handles but Linux never seems to be able to.

Of course, the first thing it did was start downloading updates - a good thing, I guess, but not something I like being bothered about. I was sad to see that the updates required a restart. I guess it's not just Windows anymore that wants to restart all the time. I thought maybe the first update was an exception, but the next one (a day later) also required a restart. Updates on Linux don't seem to require this unless there's a kernel change.

For the most part it connected to our Windows network with no problems. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to access network drives and printers but not too bad.

Next, I downloaded some software - Firefox, TextMate, and Parallels. This is where I really felt my unfamiliarity. On Windows, installing software is generally pretty easy - you run the installer and it does its thing. On the Mac I found it quite confusing. You download a ".dmg" file (disk image?) When you open that you see some files, and an icon appears on the desk top (the "disk"?). Now what? Firefox comes up with some graphic which I think is telling you to drag the program to the Application folder. It might help if there was a text explanation as well as the cryptic graphic. Of course, I made the mistake of running programs from the disk images which gave me grief because they were then running (even after I closed the window - another Mac / Windows difference). Experienced Mac users are probably laughing at my newbie confusion, but it's far from clear or consistent.

Eventually I got my programs installed. I haven't played with TextMate yet, but I've heard a lot of good things about it so I'm keen to give it a spin.

One of the first things I did was install Windows XP with Parallels. I could have used Bootcamp to dual boot Windows but having to reboot to run different software is pretty ugly. Parallels did a great job of installing Windows with no interaction (except for putting in the second cd).

It seems ironic that virtually the first thing I do with my Mac is install Windows! But since our business is all Windows software, it's a crucial feature.

I had downloaded the new Parallels release candidate since I liked the sound of the new "coherence" mode. It's awesome. I have my Windows task bar (set to auto hide) at the bottom of the screen, my Mac menu at the top, and my dock (also set to auto hide) on the left. Suneido seems to run fine. Our test suite runs as fast (if not a bit faster) than the brand new dual core PC I bought recently. It's pretty impressive to have OS X and Windows programs sharing the screen seamlessly.

I'm still having a little trouble getting used to the Mac mouse and keyboard. I keep trying to right click on things! And I keep trying to use Ctrl+C for copy instead of Apple+C. At least with Parallels Windows programs seem to accept Apple+C. And Home and End scroll to the top and bottom instead of going to the beginning or end of the line. Apple+right arrow seems to be end of line, but Apple+left arrow doesn't seem to work, at least in Firefox. Some of this is probably configurable.

Now I just need to install Ubuntu in Parallels and I'll have OS X, Windows, and Linux all in one wonderfully compact system.

Disclaimer - calling this my first Mac is stretching it a bit. I've worked with everything from Apple II's to Lisa's to Mac's, but I've never actually owned one for myself.