I've been using dual boot for quite some time now, and I believe that keeping the windows partition for just a couple of applications, while I do most of my work on linux, might be more trouble that it's worth.

I'm thinking of getting this beauty http://www.i4u.com/article9386.html
with linux and windows on a virtual machine inside.

Some questions here:

1. Is virtualization more efficient on the scenario described above (80%+ of work on linux and using windows for very specific needs, like a stupid website forcing you to browse it with IE, or a program that needs to be installed fast and used only for a weekend on windows)?
2. Will virtualization be too taxing on the little processor of the Asus Eee? Will I need a lot of RAM or faster processor?
3. Any particular virtualization software you recommend for that setting?
4. Hints or warnings?

Thanks in advance!

If you only need a few Windows programs, consider trying if Wine can install them. It should be capable of running Explorer at least winehq.org knows more.

Virtualization is a heavy task and I wouldn't go into that myself with a normal pc. Maybe with a monster with speedy cpu and a whole lot of RAM, but not necessarily even then. Having a Windows partition isn't a problem unless you're running out of disk space, but if you only use a few programs..maybe it's not worth it. Like I said, try Wine. Then there is VMware and alike software that you can use; I wouldn't go buying that laptop you mentioned, anyway.

And if you have programs that don't want to work with wine have
a look at crossover office; not expensive and worth the money.
They have a nice list of apps that won't work with wine that work
with their product. And it's cheaper than real windows, and more
light-weight than a virtualisation environment.


Cheers,
Tink

Get at-least 1 GB ram for your new notebook (7" screen?, maybe notepad), and you'll be able to use virtualization. I'd go with VirtualBox - I've loaded Win98, XP and Vista with no probs (though I have no need for any of them - I'm more interested in virtualization vis-a-vis performance.)

cheers,

For anything IE-related, IEs4Linux is a good choice.
http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page

Yves.

Although the Asus Eee is a little anemic to use virtualization (no offense intended), most reasonably strong desktops or laptops with at least 1GB of RAM, adequate hard drive space, and a 3MHz equivalent processor or better (hyperthreading or multiple cores preferred) can work nicely with Linux as the primary OS and Windows as a guest OS or the other way around. VirtualBox (open source and free for personal use) and VMWare Server (free) are capable of providing a stable, fast way to use an alternative OS. The only place where current virtualization technology is weak (at least at the low price levels), is 3D video support and gaming.

I think I would have gotten one of those AMD64 dual core based machines with plenty of RAM. Those have extra hardware support for virtualization.
Saw a demo on a SUSE SLED10 event not long ago, very impressive stuff. Very small overhead with those CPUs.

I recon in a few months I'll build my new PC using AMD quad core (was it Phenom it was called?) at least 2Gb memory and no more dual booting...

well in the past i have ran VMWare inside of Debian linux with winXP Pro as the guest. this allowed me to setup a situation that allowed my kids to play their games like reading rabbit and jump start without having to dual boot. it also allowed me greater control over their internet access.

i did that with an older P4 800Mhz FSB HT CPU with 1G ram and had zero system performance issues.

so just about any modern CPU with 1G or more of ram will/should work just fine for what you might have in mind.

as for wine and its forks, it all depends on the applications that you MUST run under windows. for me they do not work as video editing is just to taxing on the system to run in a virtual enviroment and wine just can not cut it. for me i dual boot for playing a few games that just run so much better native then cedega or wine can even dream of, and video edit just WORKS under windows vs linux.

Thank you all for your valuable input.

For other users with the same question, this page summarizes what some senior members pointed out above:

http://useopensource.blogspot.com/20...-in-linux.html

About that link:
CrossOver Office is mentioned in the comments, but not in the main list; I think I would call it "Item 3a".


Vis-a-vis IEs4Linux -- there are no MEPIS instructions. It looks to me as if the ones for Debian could guide using it on an old 3.x install. For MEPIS 6.x making the listed change to "Dapper", running as root, & dropping all occurrences of sudo should work.

BTW, the sample code goes "under" the ads in Konqueror, I had to use Opera.