I'm weaning myself off windows as much as I can, and I'm long overdue for a rebuild. So this time I want to splat my windows box and have 2 linux ones instead. But I might need to go back for certain apps that aren't supported for linux so I'll need to emulate XP.
Now under XP, VMware is the weapon of choice and seems to install any guest OS flawlessly and runs fairly quick.
What's the best virtual pc software for Debian? Is there any? Are they any good? Or am I better off keeping a seperate windows box (which I dont'really want to do)?


Thanks



Mors

Hi

If you like VMWare for Windows, why not stick with it? You just need to get the Linux version of it, not the Windows version.

Another option is dual booting - however, it's not very good option if you need Windows often.

A third option is using Wine - a lot of Windows programs work, but not all.

So I guess it depends on what Windows program you need to run and how often.

How easy is it to install the vmware version under debian?



Mors

I installed an old version a long time ago. It wasn't very hard then, and I would think it's easier now with the newer versions.

If I were you, I'd give a trial version a try. But now they've changed into many different versions of VMWare, and sorry I don't know much about it. If you get problems, just post, and someone probably knows? Of course, reading the documentation also helps.

Keep going with VMware. I am using VMware server to run XP on Etch. Works great. The documentation is good
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/server_pubs.html
read VMware Server Administration Guide for setup info
and they have a forum
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa

I've tried workstation and server and my install and it didn't like it at all. I then tried it on an Ubuntu install and it went through like a breeze.
Don't really want to go over to Ubuntu, as my hdd install came off knoppix



Mors

You may try Qemu: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ It's largely free, works on Sarge (and I presume also on Etch, never tried that though) but you need a propriety kernel module to get some serious speed.

I did a vmware server install on Debian Etch, running W2k now, no problems. It is as good as running a separate machine. You have to have at least 512 + 256 MB of RAM though, for XP I assume that is 512 + 512 MB.

jlinkels

Might be because I did the install from Knoppix. I'll have a dummy run with the full Debian distro the weekend and see if likes vmware that way. Bit annoying that it worked straight off with the Ubuntu hd install but not knoppix :/



Mors

kvm seems the latest virtual machine that should outperform the others (at least on paper) but you'll need a processor that supports virtualization.
Setup for qemu and kvm is pretty easy with sid.Dunno about stable.

I have tried Virtualbox and vmware-server. Vmware-server is the way to go between the two. Works great.

Mind to elaborate.....

Not at all ...

With VB I could never get USB to work on the guest. I'm sure you can make it work, and I did hunt for solutions. There were quite a few which makes me believe this is a global issue with this application.

I installed vmware-server and it worked fine without me having to do any /thinking/. That was the deal breaker for me.

Another item is support. If I need it, vmware is extremely popular and there is a lot of documentation to support it.

I have been a developer for 26 years and I would expect USB to be a 'given' that it works without having to do tinkering to make it work.

There are a few other minor annoyances with VB, but nothing worth mentioning.

I use virtualbox in my debian sid (sidux). Works like a charm, i have no problems with usb.

Great! Wouldn't work for me at all. Did you have to do any configuration to get it working? Or did it just work?


Mike