Virtualization or Emulation Of XP?

[Cliff76]

Hello forum,

I'm jealous of my buddy over the cubicle wall. He's running OSX and managed to install a virtualization package (I don't know the name) that allows him to run WinXP along side OSX. I've been wanting to do the same thing on Linux for quite some time because very occasionally I need to dual boot into Windows for whatever stoopid reason and I'm getting tired of losing my session. I've heard of virtualization software for Linux and even read a HowTo on one of the Ubuntu forums. (I think it was from ArnieBoy or whatever.) Now my question is what's the least painful way to install XP on KUbuntu Dapper given the available options. (BTW, I don't know the difference between virtualization and emulation but I was told by my buddy that there was a difference so if someone could kindly explain this as well I thank you.) So far what I know on the topic is that there is Xen, VMWare, QEmu, and I think one other open source product that I can't remember. I read somewhere that VMWare has a free option? Can I use that for loading Windows from Linux? I don't want to worry about paying anything so Should I look at Xen instead? How about QEmu? What are the pros and cons?

[sky]

Re: Virtualization or Emulation Of XP?

Hi,

I was interested a while ago about virtualization, the matter is that there's almost no processor yet getting this feature (Intel wanted to get one out in last november but didn't so I bought an X2 instead without virtualization)
So for me, to get virtualization you need to have a processor for it, as it's just making like you're booting on your computer 2 OS in the same time...
Emulation is only software so you're emulating a computer over your OS and installing a system on it... So for me, it should be slowlier and not optimized for your hardware...

If someone has more information about this subject can you tell if I'm right or wrong please ?

BTW really interesting subject...

Cheers

[randcoop]

Re: Virtualization or Emulation Of XP?

What most people do (and what I think your friend is doing with OSX and Windows) is emulation. You will be running a base operating system and then you will, from within that system, emulate the running of a different operating system.

Qemu does it for free. It's the only truly free emulator, because it's open source. The others (VMware, Win4Lin, Xen, and others) are corporate variations on the emulation theme. They'll claim that they're easier to install than Qemu

Win4Lin actually uses Qemu and then applies a layer or two of GUI to make it easier to use.

And ease of use may matter, so I'm not knocking any of these products.

One important thing to remember about emulation is that you must have a full-fledged Windows OS to install. Windows Upgrade disks don't work. Typically, you'll need XP with Service Pack 1 or 2.

An alternative to emulation is wine, which permits you to run many Windows programs directly from the Linux OS. Wine is open source and thus is free. If you learn how to use it, you can run Quicken for Windows, or Microsoft Outlook. You'll need the installation disks for the Windows programs you're seeking to install.

Wine is much easier than emulation. It doesn't hog the computer's memory and the software runs at virtually the same speed as it would installed to a Windows system. The disadvantage of wine compared to emulation is that it can't run all Windows programs.

But it runs a lot. And there is a commercial Wine based program, Crossover, that is much easier to use than wine itself. Visit www.codeweavers.com for a look at the software that works under Crossover (wine).

As you can see, there's many choices. Hope this helps figure things out.

[ghostwind]

Re: Virtualization or Emulation Of XP?

Why not use the free version of Vmware GLX? it's not as good a glx but worth a try.
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

[Cliff76]

Re: Virtualization or Emulation Of XP?

Thanx for all the replies. I'm fed up with trying to get Wine running as it has never worked for me. Also I want the benifit of running my exisiting Windows install without rebooting. These are the driving factors behind trying to learn about emulation. Regarding VMWare: The site confuses me. There are references to the VMWare server, the player and the appliances. I don't know where I would start to just get XP installed over Kubuntu. Do I need the server and a player? Do I need just the server? Just the player? There doesn't seem to be an appliance for XP and that makes sense since it's a commercial product. I'd have to look into it more. I'm looking for opinions now. Which emulation software is better for newbies? Which is better all around? Could someone like me get away with using QEmu without too many installation hassles or is it one of those 273 step processes? I'll be posted a blog entry about this on my site. Click my homesite link to check it out. I'll be discussing whichever option I decide to take there and detailing the entire process of installing the emulator and loading WinXP on top of it.