Update on VMs under Linux?

[Bryan O'Neal]

How do you run your exiting windows in emulation?  I have a duel boot
box I have been wanting to stop dule booting, but I did not want to give
up my windows install (I have it just the way I like it after years of
tinkering) but I did not want to go through the hassle of
ghosting/whipping/vm'ing/unghosting/ before I could use it.

Also, I tried setting up direct write access with VM Workstation 5.5 and
you had to run VM as root to have VM directly write to the NTFS volumes
on the hard drive.  Has this changed as well or are you suggesting
getting full support for the FS under Linux and then setting up VM's
network folders to some mount point?

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Kurt
Granroth
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:49 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Update on VMs under Linux?

vodhner at cox.net wrote:
> Tired of dual booting.  How hard is it, nowadays, to do the following:
> 
> 1. Run XP in some sort of emulation or virtual machine under Linux,
for light use (mostly MS Word 97).
> 
> 2. Have it able to access *existing* NTFS and FAT32 volumes on the
same box without much finagling?  I've got a fair amount of resources
that I use from both Linux and Windows.
> 
> 3. Have other VMs for use on occasion to tinker with alternative Linux
distros?  And have them able to access my main Linux / FAT32 / NTFS
files?

Almost trivial on all points.  If you get the free (as in cost, not
freedom) VMWare Server or Player, you could even run your existing
Windows in an emulated session.  I'm doing that right now on one of my
newer boxes.  Basically, as long as I turn off automatic updates and
only do the updates in one session (either emulated OR physical), then
I'm fine.

The advantage of that approach vs having a disk image is mostly related
to speed.  Physical drives are marginally faster than disk images.
Also, if you have substantial software already installed, you won't have
to reinstall it.

If you want access to NTFS and FAT32 volumes outside of VMWare, then it
sort of depends.  You can have full read-write access to all FAT volumes
on any and all Linux distros.  Read access to NTFS is also available on
all distros.  Write access to NTFS is another story.  AFAIK, the only
distro that has it "installed" is Gentoo and that's only because you can
install whatever the heck you want as the "base".  Under SUSE or all
other distros, you'll have to get the NTFS-3G package which should allow
you full access.  YMMV.  It's better to NOT use NTFS for shared storage.

You can also give any VM Linux image access to your host files via
several methods.  The easiest is to set up an NFS share on the shared
drives and just mount them in the emulated image.  If you can guarantee
single access to the drive, then you can even setup VMWare to directly
access the disk at a raw level.  Don't try it with a drive that's
mounted on both your Host and your Image, though.

> I am willing to pay some money for software to avoid having another
box.
> 
> I have a 1.3 GHz Athlon cpu and 0.5 GB of memory.  I'm not too
particular about performance, especially on the Windows side.

The CPU is fine but the memory might cause you some grief.  I would
strongly recommend at least 1.0 GB if you want to run a VM.  Most VMs
are unusable at less than 256 M and you will be seriously hurting for
space at that level.

> I'm also interested in possible virtual solutions at work, to allow
isolated instances inside a single Linux box for tinkering.  Would be
cool to run Solaris 10 under Linux too, since our production shop is
mostly Solaris 10.  Once again, VM performance would not be an issue for
this purpose.

Absolutely.  We run VMWare extensively at work with multiple VMs running
at a time.  It's an indispensable part of our workflow now and we can't
imagine development without them.

Kurt
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