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I think that I'm stuck in analysis paralysis and hope that one of my LQ colleagues -- that's you gentle reader -- can help me get un-stuck.
As of 1 July, 2014, are most of the wrinkles ironed out for mainstream use by end-users who need a few apps in the guest OS environment?
Do I understand things correctly?
Install VirtualBox onto your running Linux system along with all of its parts. Then configure your VM disk space and other resources. That done, treat your VM as if it were its own enclosure and spin the install media for your guest OS. Lastly, spin the install media for any apps that you want to run on the guest OS.
The devil is in the details. Specifically, getting networking, video, USB, audio and video to work as desired within the guest OS VM. I've also heard of required tinkering for mouse and keyboard use as one moves from host display to VM display. Not only must one deal with this for the guest OS, but also for the several apps one wants to run.
I have a heavy duty frankenstein workstation running Linux Mint-17 KDE. "Frankenstein" meaning that I gathered hardware and assembled my own mostly custom box. Most of the time, I'm only using one or two or of my i7 cores and 16 GB box so there are lots of cycles for a virtual machine or two.
Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan
PS/ Everyone should understands that "guest OS" is a euphemism for that other pane-in-the-glass desktop OS.
I may mis-understand. A VM has almost all hardware based on some real hardware or some unique vm written device. For most installs of a client, the hardware presented is that of the VM choice not the actual hardware. If you are using a copy protected commercial OS then you may need to read up on how it can be legally copied. Also the cpu may affect how the activation scheme works. Some vm's present the real cpu to the client. In time more hardware will be actual to the client.
Some i7's are very good at running vm's. In fact a few were designed just for this task. Yes, many modern computers have excess resources. It isn't as simple as ram or cpu's either. Hard drive access and backplane and network all may consume resources.
As for an install. You do install the vm. May have to configure permissions or run some config setup. Might need to add in some package or two. You then create a client machine. You can change that later to some extent. Then boot the client to the source and normal load. Once it is loaded they generally can be copied or moved easily just like any subdirectory and set of files.
The interface may have changed slightly since it was written, but it should be a good starting place.
A long time ago, I wrote a series of blog posts on installing CentOS in VirtualBox. It might help you. This links to the last post; it contains links to the previous ones.
The interface may have changed slightly since it was written, but it should be a good starting place.
A long time ago, I wrote a series of blog posts on installing CentOS in VirtualBox. It might help you. This links to the last post; it contains links to the previous ones.
Thanks, frankbell for your links and your blog post reference. While I'm going to deploy Linux as the host and that other OS as the guest, the process is likely very similar as you suggest.
Follow-up:
I found this article Windows-8 as Guest at the site of your 'Tutorial' link. Between the two, I might have what I need.
{I can't resist}... I'll be back ... {sorry}
with a report of my success or other news.
Regards,
~~~ 8d;-Dan
Last edited by SaintDanBert; 07-03-2014 at 05:48 PM.
I was in grad school for Computer Science in the late 70's. IBM did this huge research project. Their conclusion? "Virtual memory systems run best with lots of physical memory."
Things don't change but that they remain the same.
I've run VirtualBox on both Windows and Linux. The VB interface is the virtually (you will pardon the expression) the same on both.
With a Linux host and a win-7 guest,
Will it matter whether I use "Home Premium" or "Professional" as the guest?
Will it matter if I use 32-bit vs. 64-bit guest? NOTE -- My Linux host is 64-bit everything.
This is somewhat rhetorical as I'll use what I have, but I'm curious about the technical considerations as I learn this virtualization topic.
{COMMENTARY}
It would be wonderful if I could simply point VirtualBox™ at an existing win-dose partition and say RUN_WITH_THIS. That would make conversion from dual-boot to virtual simple and straight forward.
{/COMMENTARY}
Regards,
~~~ 0;-Dan
Last edited by SaintDanBert; 07-04-2014 at 03:31 PM.
Will it matter whether I use "Home Premium" or "Professional" as the guest?
It shouldn't matter as far as VB is concerned. As far as Windows will know, it's installing to a blank HDD. All the installation dialogs you will see are the same ones you will see if you installed to bare metal. You will get the features of whatever version of Windows you install.
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