VirtualBox

[Runaway1956]

Don't need any help, at this time. I just wanted to point out that Virtual Box works nicely, and to give the Ubuntu developers a pat on the back.

Almost everyone just HAS TO RUN something that will NOT RUN on *nix. In my case, that means MS Office, not to mention a few games for the family.

I've researched virtual machines in the past, and had made my mind up that VMWare was the best thing out there. Imagine my surprise, when I found Virtual Box in the Adept Manager, installed, and ran it. This thing seems to be equal to VMWare's offering, but it's MUCH EASIER to install, and to set up. Comparing prices, there is no contest!

Dual booting is a major pain, IMHO. To switch to Windows, one has to save and close everything on the desktop, wait for the computer to reboot, etc etc.

Virtual machine means that I need not go through all that tiresome nonsense. Just pull down the menu, select whichever machine I need to run, and start it, then go to the app that I need. It's great!!

Meanwhile, I look forward to the day when Open Office is able to run MS Office XML macros accurately.

[bpb]

Re: VirtualBox

I'm in the opposite situation right now; I'm running WinXP and using VMWare to boot Kubuntu (8.0.4) while I decide whether to migrate to Kubuntu full time. So, what I'm curious about with your setup is: do you also access your MS Office files from Kubuntu (i.e. are they in folders shared with the virtual machine), or are they only stored on the Windows virtual machine?

My main issues keeping me from migrating to Kubuntu are synchronization of my Palm Treo 650 (and along with that all my MS Office format files), a Cisco VPN connection to work, and frequent remote desktop connections at work over the VPN. I'm not as worried about the VPN stuff as I am keeping my files and documents "in sync" between the Treo, the host OS, and the Guest OS. I'd be interested to know how running Kubuntu as your host OS and WinXP as your guest OS (especially over VirtualBox) is working for you, since I definitely agree about dual-booting between the two.

[pookito]

Re: VirtualBox

I'd be interested to know how running Kubuntu as your host OS and WinXP as your guest OS (especially over VirtualBox) is working for you.

Dude, I am using Virtualbox and it works just fine for me. Do not forget to install the add on for XP. It would be save you a lot of trouble. For now there is a problem with the usb ports and virtual box on windows guest, but a quick search on the Ubuntu forums will guide you to victory. It is great software and it would give you freedom.

Here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...virtualbox+usb. click on this link and it would take you to a series of steps to fix the usb problem on Kubuntu or ubuntu host. If I were you I would safe it as a bookmark for future reference. Good luck.

[jayson.rowe]

Re: VirtualBox

Almost everyone just HAS TO RUN something that will NOT RUN on *nix. In my case, that means MS Office, not to mention a few games for the family.

I don't. I used to have Office 2003 running in Crossover, but I've gotten more used to OOo over time, so I quit using it and finally uninstalled it - I also have a few games that work fine in Cedega and/or Wine, so no loss there.

That being said, I'm a huge user of and fan of Virtualization. Part of it comes from my work, as a Network Administrator Virtual Machines make my life a lot easier, and my job (and my Datacenter) far more efficient. To me, it makes a lot more since (both practical and financial) to buy one "beefy" server and split it into say 5 or 10 virtuals (depends on the apps, and how "beefy" the server is). It saves money - as you can generally buy one "beefy" server for far less than 5-10 low-spec servers, it saves energy as I only have 1 physical server doing the job of 5-10, plus I save space in the datacenter, and all this comes at no performance loss for most applications.

The secret is, you have to know what servers can go on virtuals and what servers need a physical for peak performance. My main Database server, definitely physical, but the server I use to run btLogAnalyser to go through ISA logs, or the server accounting uses to host their accounting package, or the myriad of test servers that R&D need, to even some web-servers all go on virtuals.

We previously used VMware exclusively, but we are now moving to XenSource (owned by Citrix, but is basically a Xen enabled RHEL5 (CentOS 5?) kernel and a very minimal Linux system install married to their Console for your workstation. Very powerful stuff, and very flexible.

On my workstation at work, I have both VMware-Server and Virtualbox installed - I use Virtualbox more to run an XP install on my Vista workstation, however I do need VMware server to troubleshoot and test out VM's in vmware format. Both work fine - I favor VirtualBox because it tends to run XP smoother w/ less RAM allocated to it for some reason (and RAM is a premium on a Vista box!).

At home, I have a Laptop downstairs that just happens to be running Windows Server 2003 (I had a license and it just wound up on there), and I have VMWare Server installed there, running a few Windows and Linux virtuals full time- mostly for testing stuff though - I guess you could say it's my own personal little VMware host server. Besides, it's only other job in life is to allow my mom to RDP to her desktop upstairs so she doesn't have to climb the staris :-)

[Boboz]

Re: VirtualBox

Excuse me if i jump here, but i've a problem in virtualbox...i cant set up network correctly to make host and guest able to communicate.
I've read the manual and made a lot of tests to setup with 'host interface' network. I've created the bridge (br0) and i'm unable to go on, the permanent or temporary tap interfaces wont run.
Maybe (for sure  ) i'm doing something wrong or i dont make something at all.
My host has 192.168.1.10 ip and internal gateway at 192.168.1.254. It's my interfaces file:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
    address 127.0.0.1
    netmask 255.0.0.0

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.10
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.1.0

auto br0
iface br0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.100
    network 192.168.1.0
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    broadcast 192.168.1.255
    gateway 192.168.1.254
    bridge_ports eth0

Is this correct?

The files for startup and shutdown temporary interface (tap0 or vbox0) are as those in the manual examples.

Another trouble: VBoxAddIF, VBoxDeleteIF and similar vbox-related commands are all 'not found'

Someone can help?

[Boboz]

Re: VirtualBox

None can help?

[dibl]

Re: VirtualBox

I used Samba for a VMWare Player-to-Linux host network. Is that what you're trying to do?

[Boboz]

Re: VirtualBox

No. I have a winXP virtual machine in linux and need to communicate between them.