Laptop OS Virtualization?

[Darrell Michaud]

I'm doing this on two laptops..

One is running Fedora Core 5 x76-64, and occasionally hosts 32bit
WinXP-pro VMs using VMware's free beta server. It works well, and has good
network options, albeit with some command-line configuration.

The other is running WinXP-pro 32bit, and uses Microsoft's Virtual PC and
(now a no-cost download) Virtual server. This is easier to use, but
restricts you to using windowsXp (or more realistically
Server2003/Server2000) as the host. Virtual Server allows linux guests,
but Virtual PC does not support Linux well, although there are reports
that people have got it to work.

Both VM product families work well for me. I think the VirtualPC and
VirtualServer interface is slicker, but has less features and slightly
worse performance in apples to apples comparisions.

Both products have betas that can be downloaded and used for no cost
(although the no-cost license may expire in the future)

For both, the VMs consume a lot of memory. Both my laptops are maxxed out
at 2GB.

Disk Space is also important for VMs, if you want to keep historical
copies, multiple versions, etc. I picked up a 160GB high performance and
silent seagate laptop drive from newegg that I can recommend.

I haven't used Xen yet, because at the moment my guest VM needs are
primarily related to running MS systems.


Charles Farinella said:
> On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 12:39, Ted Roche wrote:
>> Has anyone got multiple OSes running simultaneously on their personal
>> machines? I've got a laptop I dual-boot between WinXPPro (client
>> work) and Linux (more client work, home & hobby), and I'd like to be
>> able to toggle between the two rather than a slow reboot.
>
> VMWare has released it's server software as a free download,
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/.  I have it on a couple of
> machines (not laptops) and it works very well.
>
> --charlie
>
>>
>> Anyone doing this? What VM manager are you using? What host OS? Tips?
>> Reviews? Pans? Warnings?
>>
>> Ted "You've got answers? I've got questions!" Roche
>> Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
>> http://www.tedroche.com
>>
>>
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> --
> Charles Farinella
> Appropriate Solutions, Inc. (www.AppropriateSolutions.com)
> cfarinella at AppropriateSolutions.com
> 603.924.6079
>
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