Have read these forums many times and finally joined LQ.org. I have been using Linux for about a year now, have two machines that are Dual-Boot, one is xp/suse 11.1 and the other is XP/Kubuntu 9.04 kde 3.XXX. I am wanting to set up a safe learning environment that I learn more about linux without destroying the distro's I have running now. I have really screwed up before and although a learning experience I'd like to avoid that mistake again. Both systems and Pentium 4, the Suse system does have a Nvidia card added on, the other system is stock. I am looking forward to trying a virtual system but don't know which one to try and on which machine?? Some advice along these lines is much appreciated.

I've been using the free version of VirtualBox for a while now, it seems stable and it is easy to set up. I can recommend it over VMWare.

VirtualBox

Try to avoid letting them sell you the professional version. The free version is perfectly adequate.

Virtualbox ... in either system.

Thanks for the quick reply's. Going to dl VB and try installing it. Appreciate the insight. I'm sure I'll be back as I start this voyage.

Ok I've dl Vbox for Ubuntu and installed it with "sudo Apt-get install virtualbox 3.0" It looks like it has set up a "users group" is that just on my local machine or have I dl'd the wrong version (not free)? Also as previous mentioned, if I install vbox on the Suse 11.0 machine do I therefore need to install the Nvidia drivers in vbox? Sometimes my learning curve is a hill, I know but they'll never stop me. Thanks in advance for you advice and patience.

The VirtualBox installation creates a vboxusers group, and all users of VirtualBox need to belong to it. This is just a security measure.

You don't want to install any video drivers in the client OS, but you do want to install the VB guest software once the guest OS is running -- go to menu item "Devices ... Install Guest Additions". This gives you a number of nice features.