going M$ free

[Jim March]

It gets better yet.

With Vbox, when Windows is running (and eating some system resources), it's
getting it's internet feed from Ubuntu which in turn is acting like a
software firewall from hell.

The XP (or whatever version you want, XP is really best though) virtual
machine lives on a single file within the Linux file system, at
/home/username/.VirtualBox/somethingorother - so you can just back up the
whole /.VirtualBox directory to something else any time you want.  If
Windows goes kablewy, don't try and debug it, reload it from backup.

Pro tip: don't use the "open source edition" found in most repos - go to
www.virtualbox.org and get the "Personal Use Evaluation License" edition
which is free for personal use, costs bux for corporate use.  This one has
two extra features: USB pass-through lets you connect a USB device straight
to the virtual machine, and host/guest networking lets you share a Linux
directory with the guest OS and from within Windows, map it to a drive
letter.  This lets you store all the Windows data in a Linux directory, so
if anything happens to the Windows install, screw it, reload and don't even
bother to salvage the data because there isn't any.

VirtualBox will work with a CPU that doesn't support hardware virtualization
but will work better if it does.  More or less any "dual core" AMD CPU will
have what AMD calls "AMD-x", while Intel sometimes gets cheesy and withholds
"VT-x" from some chips.  Example...google the following two:

Intel T5500

Intel T7400

You'll get Intel's official specs page on both.  Although they're both "core
2 duo", the T5500 lacks hardware virt.  In a few cases Intel has shipped
chips that lack 64bit support but DO have hardware virt - the T2500 for
example.  The Intel "Pentium Dual Cores" all lack hardware virt support that
I know of, even the relatively fast T4500.

I would argue that us Linux guys actually need hardware virt support more
than we need 64bit, at least for desktop systems.  Intel has been pushing
64bit as more critical, supporting it even in a fair number of single-core
CPUs including most of the Atom series.

Jim

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 10:16 AM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> That is cool!!
>
> So you are only using the apps you can only run under windows, like IE.
> You do all your browsing and email using Linux so you are less vulnerable to
> malware, rootkits, and all the other junk that is our there.
>
> Nice!!
>
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
>
> --- On *Mon, 9/13/10, Kevin Fries <kfries6 at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Kevin Fries <kfries6 at gmail.com>
>
> Subject: Re: going M$ free
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Monday, September 13, 2010, 9:44 AM
>
>
> Even better, VBox has a mode called seamless mode.  I need Vision every so
> often, so I have XP in a vbox instance.  I have an icon on my desktop that
> uses the command line interface to start the Windows instance on demand,
> otherwise why waste the resources.  When I first set ut up, Windows came up
> in a window, but I auto-hid the launch bar and hit ctrl-L to go into
> seamless mode.  Now, when I move my mouse pointer to the bottom of the
> screen, the start menu appears, and I can launch any program I installed in
> my windows instance.  Freaks out the Windows guys because it makes it look
> like your windows program is actually running on Linux... ah geek fun!!
>
> Kevin
>
> On Sep 13, 2010 10:34 AM, "keith smith" <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=klsmith2020@yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
> So basically I install my favorite distro of Linux.  Download and install
> the compatible version of virtualbox.  Then install XP in the virtualbox.
>
> Would I be able to open an instance of XP in a window?  Like opening
> multiple browser tabs?  That way I would be able to go back and forth
> between Windows and Linux.
>
>
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
>
> --- On *Mon, 9/13/10, Ariel Gold <arielqgold at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=arielqgold@gmail.com>
> >* wrote:
>
>
> From: Ariel Gold <arielqgold at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=arielqgold@gmail.com>
> >
> Subject: Re: going M$ free
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us<http://mc/compose?to=plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> >
> Date: Monday, September 13, 2010, 9:25 AM
>
> > > I also run virtualbox for IE testing. I run tinyxp, which runs blazing
> fast (not that i've done...
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss
> mailing list - PLUG-discuss at ...
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us<http://mc/compose?to=PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
>
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us<http://mc/compose?to=PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20100913/f5f6aff9/attachment.html>