Hi Eh,

I just tripped over this thread...and thanks for your questions Thane! I'm almost in the same boat as you...

I've got a ratty old ASRock 775Dual-VSTA MoBo, Pentium D820, 2Gb OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400, and a super cool Corsair F60 SSD. I dumped U10.10 on it and I've been learning the hard way, for the last two months. I've had a hate on for MS for a l-o-n-g time, but the last time I tinkered with linux...was way back in the mid 90s. After pounding my brains out trying to figure out how to pull up a simple directory listing (took 2 days to finally get Linux SETI running...what the *hell* is a damn "tar-ball" anyway!)...I decided linux wasn't for me. I had become a happy uber-geek from W95 on and life was great...I loved having to completely reformat and install W95...al 30 floppies of it. That euphoria lasted for years, till early 2K. Now I'm old, married, kid-ed and the last thing I have time for is tinkering with a damn computer. <sigh> how we change, eh? Live CDs impressed the hell out of me, Knoppix went onto a spare harddrive, but I had hardware issues out the yin-yang, so scrap that. I guess my final relization that I just needed a simple surfer brought me back to try again and Ubuntu was the best choice. It's been fun getting those old, obsesssive juice flowing again, and Thank God for The Net. I'd still be staring at a blank screen because of that tricky little 'nomodeset' ba$tard. Anyway, I digress...
I'm also stuck with some MSonly apps. PhotoShop (paid for too! doh!) and DVDfab and the criticals, like Thane, I'm sure my Garmin GPS sports watch nor my Harmony Universal remote have linux support either. I found out about and am very impressed with WINE, but it's a no-go for me. I found out about VirtualBox and have been at it for a couple days. So far, damn magical! Let's hope it works...

I've got U10.10 on the hardware and XPvm'd. (I chopped up my XP using 'nLite' <- super cool program that lets you redo the entire XP install disc and config it's setup like you want.)

So, anyway...I just want to say hi and *bump* and sit on the sidelines here. Now that Vbox is working, I'm noticing my CPUs maxing out (my CPU fan runs continuously now)...that just might be enough to push me over the edge and upgrade....like you did Thane. Let us know how your setup is working out for you...

Yous guys sure sound like you know your thing, so I'll sit and learn...

Thanks,
Eric

p.s.
here's a ?unrelated? quick question:
- Vbox was chunking, so I pulled up the U10.10 System Monitor and my CPUs were cycling the load, back and forth, almost exactly 180deg out of phase. 1 is max, 2 is min...then 1 drops, 2 rises....2 is max, 1 is min....repeat cycle. (I can grab a screen print, if yous want)
Is that normal behaviour? (I realise this is old junk I got....when I had Vista on this rig, It crashed all the time). I've never looked at the CPUs during normal non-Vbox time, though.

Hi Sponge;
No ideas here re: your post script. However for what its worth from someone, who's just muddled through getting Vbox up an running, here's what I've done. AMD Phenom cpu and virtual compliant mobo with all 4 ram slots filled for a total of 8GB of memory. 1 TB hdd holding all operating systems and also partitions with backups of my system. My /home is on a separate drive from my OS's. Ubuntu 10.10 amd64 installed as my main OS and used as the vbox host. Virtualbox 4.0 installed and both Ubuntu 10.10 amd64 and winxp installed as guests, then guest additions installed in the guests. Extra vram given to the guests via vboxmanage commands in Terminal. This last bit was needed, because my monitor is a 27" with an hdmi pc input. It wouldn't run on the tiny vram available by default. I gave my guests 1024MB of ram each to try out and so far I'm satisfied with that. All updates done, systems set up the way I like and then snapshots taken. Subsequently I've made cloned guests as required for my needs. Many thanks to all, who helped me through the confusing initiation to virtualization!

One of the really irritating things I always found with Windows on my main machine, once I made the switch to Ubuntu, apart from the usual MS stuff, was the time and aggravation involved in shutting down my linux, then rebooting my system into windows just to access my Polar S710 heartrate monitor software. My cycling Computrainer, which only runs in windows, was on a separate computer and monitor on the other side of the room, with another bought copy of xp. I also had one older computer downstairs for transferring my music on vinyl to the computer, so that I can protect my records. Now that I have virtualization running, I will be down to one machine upstairs and one downstairs, the latter made from the best parts of all my old machines. The Computrainer monitor will be run from a virtualized xp guest on my main machine via a second vid out line.

With regards your Garmin sports watch and linux, I've just ordered a Garmin Edge 800 partly due to past problems with getting my windows-based Polar S710 data transferred over into ubuntu. Although there have been problems with running Garmins in the past in linux, I understand things are improving in that area and their 800 has a really large and slick touch screen. Also if your Garmin also has gps, there are workarounds for this problem. The ubuntu repos have programs, which help out with Garmin gps file transfer issues. One of these for example is GPSBabel, which (although I haven't tried it yet) apparently uploads, downloads and converts the gps map files to other useable file types for ubuntu. And if you're using the Garmin internet-based exercise program for their products, which only runs on windows, I've repeatedly seen comments via google, that this program runs fine in a virtual copy of windows. Another program, which is apparently quite good for using Polar and Garmin data in linux is Golden Cheetah. I intend to try that one out, once my Garmin arrives and I get a chance to give it a go. The screenshots on their site look great. Cheers.

Hi Thane.

Thanks for the Guidance & Direction and the suggestion about VidRam. I've got a DVI bigazz screen too. Things seem to work fine, but I'll look into VidRam 'enhancement'.
Thanks, also, for the specifics of your setup, but can you be more specific about your "virtual compliant" mobo and ram type? I never realised mobo's had that 'feature'. I was marveling about Vboxing at coffee this morning and my local guru suggested I go 8Gigs as well, since my primary Vbox need is for DVDfabing and big photoediting, bot ram intensive processes. He was talking about the new intel 'sand-something-or-other' flavour of 6x cpu that was blowing the doors of everything and the matching Asus mobo, etc... I'm not ready to leap just yet and seriously considering staying a year behind for best-bang-for-buck-age (it is super-efficient Linux, anyway...). I'm done with willy-nilly pouring my wallet into my local computer store. (no more dropping $600 for a Creative !!! 2x !!! CD burner, $500 for a Matrox Millenium (say who?) 3D card ...and being blown away by the amazing deal I got at the computer show...no more being The King until someone else bought the next best whatever <sniff>...)

I didn't even really think about trying to see if linux and Garmin (or Logitech Harmony remotes) can get along. I was just fixated on vboxing them...but hey if it works natively...why not? I'll sniff your suggestions out...

I have two more nails to drive into my laptop's lid. I've already unloaded all my personal stuff, up to my Synology NAS. And...although I'm typing this on said laptop (it's being a handy dandy netbook while I pound on my linux box. that's how I came across this thread)...once I confirm Vbox can connect to my NAS, all on it's own...and also printout thru my NAS...Boom! Bye Bye sluggish 4yr old XP laptop and hello very decent Ubuntu laptop....which I'll continue to use as a giant netbook.

So! off to get me a hammer...wish me luck!
Eric