I am running Windows XP as the sole OS on a MacBook laptop with 4GB RAM, a 120GB hard drive and a DVD drive.

Is my hardware adequate for building a VM system with Win XP as the host OS? Being a complete neophyte, I also like to know what user-friendly VM software is available.

My immediate objective is to pick up enough VM know-how just to run Windows XP and Ubuntu 12.04 simultaneously. Any help will be much appreciated.

Julianvb

Although WinXP is pretty old, you should able to use Virtualbox or VMware player.
Virtualbox is opensource and VMplayer is free for personal use.

1 members found this post helpful.

Do you mean Win XP as host or as guest?

That's plenty brawny to host a Win XP guest.

1 members found this post helpful.

Myatthu,

Thank you very much for your very helpful information. I'll definietely look into VMplayer and Virtualbox.

Julianvb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank,

I mean resident OS. Since I'm new to VM, I may be using the wrong terminology.
Thanks.

Julianvb

Computer jargon will get you every time. That's why Wikipedia has "disambugation" pages.

I use VirtualBox, simply because it's what I'm used to. After the first time, you'll have the hang of it.

For Windows XP in a VM, you could likely make it scream with 524 MB of RAM.

Frank,

I hope I've made myself a bit less nebulous, to mint a cloud-computing term. I'll shout with joy
and let you know when I succeed in VM land. Many thanks again.

Julianvb

[chuckle] Thanks. I needed a smile.

Frank,

I tried VMplayer on a Ubuntu 12.04 machine tonight and came across the same problem repeatedly. I first downloaded VMware-Player-6.0.1-1379776.i386.bundle from www.VMWare.com and then ran the following commands from the Downloads directory as follows.

chmod +x VMware-Player-6.01-1379776.i386.bundle
sudo sh VMware-Player-6.01-1379776.i386.bundle 1>VM-data 2>VM-errs

VM-data outputs:
Extracting VMware Installer...done.

VM-errs outputs:

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",

(vmware-installer.py:3289): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module": libcanberra-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

VMware Installer outputs:
One of your processors does not have the necessary 64-bit extensions to run VMware virtual machines.

I thought I picked 'VMware Player and VMware Player for 32-bit Linux' from the VMWare website.

Your help will be greatly appreciated as always.

Julianvb

I haven't used VMWare Player, but this looks like a dependency error to me, which is puzzling, in that "murrine" seems to be a theme of some sort and one would not expect a theme to be a dependency.

This article might help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Player VMWare Player seems to be in the Ubuntu repos.

I have always used VirtualBox, mostly out of inertia.

By way, when you post blocks of code, using "Code tags" makes it easier to read. If you click the "Go Advanced" button at the bottom of the compose post ("Quick Reply") window before you publish your post, Code tags become available in the menu bar at the top of the composition window.

Good luck.

Frank,

Thanks for the 'code tags' advice. I'll handle them better next time.

I discovered yesterday that my 'murrine' problem might have been due to VMware Player 6's requiring 64-bit hardware even though the title of the download clearly says VMware Player for Linux 32-Bit.

When I installed VMware Player version 3, I encountered no system errors from 'sudo sh VMware-Player-
3.1.6-744570.i386.bundle'. However, I still can find any meaningful results from my work.

Julianvb

You cannot run VMware on a 32-bit host system. You need a 64-bit OS. Virtualbox, however, can run on both 32-bit and 64-bit OS. From experience, it runs much better on a 64-bit OS, though. If your processor has virtualization extensions (VT-x for Intel and AMD-V for AMD) enable them in the BIOS/EFI.

That murrine error is a GTK theme error. I had it, too, on my system and it doesn't affect anything except for maybe the looks of the VMware GUI.

Just curious, how did you get Windows XP to run by itself on a Mac? I didn't think XP could boot from EFI-based systems.

I bought a virtualization program ... retail ... about $140 USD if I recall ... and never looked back at that wise decision.

It is or should be fairly effortless to set up a virtual machine running Windows-anything-32bit with such an arrangement, and I have become very jealous of my own time when it comes to these "build-or-buy decisions." Fact is, "free" can be very expensive indeed.

Several years ago, I had to get something done and subscribed to Crossover Linux for just that reason.

Yep, Linux just proves that true!

2014-02-09

When I was given the MacBook laptop by a relative, I didn't want to spend time learning another O.S. My natural instinct was to replace OSX with Windows XP, which I had been using for a long time. So I took out my reliable Active KillDisk CD and erased OSX with it. I then installed Windows XP with an installation CD that I had bought legally for $25.


I found it very easy to install VM Player on my Windows XP-resident MacBook. But I did have trouble in introducing Ubunbu 12.04 to VM Player. This Ubuntu ISO had worked well previously. I just don't understand why it was not accepted by VM Player. As I said, VM Player accepted GuyDog Linux all right but the subsequent performance has been very disappointing.

This bad experience led me to trying something else, namely installing VM Player on my Ubuntu 12.04-resident 32-bit HP computer. I soon learned that only VM player version 3 is truly 32-bit. Even though I've now successfully installed VM version 3, I have yet to find anything related to VM Player that I can use for virtualizIation.

This is my long VM Player tale. I'll be most grateful for any new advice from this forum.

Julianvb