Hi, Iv heard that its possible to emulate windows xp inside of Linux. Is this true and How would I do it?

Mike

Couple different ways...

http://www.winehq.org
http://www.codeweavers.com

Then there's VMWareplayer, which I have very little familiarity with. I believe it more or less looks like you're running Windows in a window. Getting Windows Apps to work in Wine/Crossover, can be hit and miss. If possible, its best to find a Linux program to do what you want. I use Crossover to run to Windows only progs I need, and it works fine. Big difference, Wine is free, Crossover costs money(but is worth it to me).

I think VMwareplayer is free also, but don't hold me to that.

IGF

There are a few options.

You could run a virtual machine like vmware or parallels. This emulates a whole PC. You can install Windows in there (I think you will need a license). This type of solution is very heavy on system resources.

There is also wine. Wine provides a compatibility layer for windows program - implementing system calls and so on. Using wine you can get some windows software to run without having to have Microsoft's software installed on your machine. Be aware that wine is a work in progress and results vary a lot depending on what software you want to run. Some apps run well, but a great many don't run at all, or run with big problems.

If you have a specific application in mind, you may find it's status in the wine compatibility database.

Qemu is a free open source virtual machine, works great.

Good part is that it is also possible to run Qemu on a PowerPC (PPC) Linux distribution and run MS Windows XP in virtual machine.

It is possible to run MS Windows XP on your Sony Playstation 3, running Fedora Linux distribution.

I second that. Use QEMU. It's free and will work. It doesn't beat VMware, but QEMU worked fine for me when I needed to do basic things. I wouldn't go around playing my games on Windows via QEMU, but just enough to debug or test programs works fine. Make sure you get the accelerator, too! KQemu.

Otherwise, you can do what others suggested and use Wine to run specific Windows applications and/or games. It may work, it may not.

GOod luck!

Qemu is nice. However it's painfully slow unless you get the accelerator kernel module, which is difficult to get working.

A general point about virtual machines: as far as I know you'll not be able to use accelerated gfx drivers in your v, so no 3d games.

Dang, I was hoping to get games working inside of Linux! The main problem with me moving completely to Linux is gaming, since I play a lot of pc games.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

There's a commercial product called Cedega, which is based on wine tailored to the needs of games players. This allows some windows games to run on Linux. The good thing about games is that they tend to implement lots of stuff internally, so they don't depend on a large number of external libraries, so this means the success rate under wine is sometimes better than with other programs. I've even seen anecdotal evidence that some games run faster under wine/cedega than under Windows, but it's hard to tell how true that is.

Having said all that, I don't have personal experience of it. The best thing to do is read around on Cedega with reference to the games you want to play, and see if they are supported.

Also, just try to install your games under wine and see if they work. It's worth a try.

I'm not posting any unique ideas here, but I think I'm posting them with better presentation that they have been so far. I've included my top 3 choices for virtualization/emulation/portability here along with their website addresses and the intro paragraph from their homepage as a quick reference guide for you. I hope this helps.

WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator) - http://www.winehq.com

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris.



VMWare Server - http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

Experience Server Virtualization - Free!

Begin enjoying the benefits of server virtualization with the free VMware Server. VMware Server installs on any existing server hardware and partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines by abstracting processor, memory, storage and networking resources, giving you greater hardware utilization and flexibility. Streamline software development and testing and simplify server provisioning as you utilize the ability to "build once, deploy many times."

Read the data sheet for more information or download the free VMware Server and try it for yourself.



Transgaming - http://www.transgaming.com/

At TransGaming Technologies we bridge the gap between disparate gaming systems by providing unique and innovative software portability solutions that facilitate the migration and deployment of video games from one gaming system to alternate gaming systems.

Our products allow developers and publishers to extend their content to new markets and realize new revenue streams with little to no effort on their part. We also work directly with these developers and publishers to bring content to the traditional platforms - Xbox, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and next generation consoles - efficiently and cost-effectively. Our Cider portability engine serves as a tremendous asset to video game developers and publishers by allowing them to release a Windows and Mac version of their titles simultaneously.

Cedega , TransGaming's flagship Linux portability product, allows Windows games to run on Linux seamlessly and transparently, right out of the box. With Cedega installed on your computer running Linux, you can simply insert your favorite Windows game CD, install and then play that game just as you would on a Windows system.

One answer only, buy a Playstation 3. You will get a super-B game platform and you can run Linux (supported by Sony)

Everyone seems to be forgetting Win4Lin (win4lin.com) I haven't seen any revues for a long time, but it is a mature product and from what I gather from the homepage, Win4Lin Pro Desktop doesn't need a special kernel, as the last version of the product that I looked at did.