Help me please!!! For my work I have to do some programming for an existing tool... in VB6... So no option but rebooting to windows.. Or is there? Is there an option to get VB6 running under Linux? It has to be a free option, since my boss doesn't want to pay me for running Linux... On the other hand, he also doesn't want top pay me for the mental damage I got by having to work in Windows again...

Yeah, there is - get rid of VB6 and start progarmming with Linux

No, but really..you could try Wine to run VB6, though I fear it's not going to work, but you could try it..then you could use WMware to run XP on your linux. Or vice versa.

Is there a free version of VMWare that could do this? Or is there an open-source (or at least free) variant that does the same job?

i am afraid that there is no free version. There is a version for linux, but i think that you would need a serial number...

But you can run your native installed windowz with VMWare, there's no need to install it again in VMWare...

Enter Gambas: (Gambas Almost Means BASic)

Located at http://gambas.sourceforge.net/, Gambas is a completely free VB-like programming language for Windows and Linux. I haven't used it myself though. The Gambas site has a comprehensive guide on using Gambas.
A word of warning: Gambas is not a VB clone, so don't think about compiling your VB code directly.

Qemu is an x86 virtual machine for Windows/Linux. Just install a copy of Windows inside of qemu and you should be able to run VB6 inside it.

It is located at: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

Of course, when Wine becomes stable...

I feel exactly the same. If all my games (which are mostly DirectX-based...grrr) worked on Linux then I would delete Windows off my machine entirely. Heck...even my PDA (iPaq 3950) runs Linux.

That is indeed the best thing to do... but the thing is that this is not an option in this case, since it is an existing VB program, and the customer demands it is written in VB...

But I am going to try some VMWare-ish things.
Thanks!

Is there a problem to keep Windows as one of the bootable alternatives?

You can boot as many versions as Windows (and keep the VB6 there for the rainny days to back to) as you want in Linux.

There is no problem whatsoever in keeping a windows partition to boot from. I just terribly hate working in windows. So when I really need to work in windows, I really miss my linux. So I am going to try to get the windows programs that I need to run in linux.

for vmware, use a trial to make the vm, and free vmware player to run it after

You can always run Windows software from a terminal server. I'm using Thinserver XP and rdesktop

Thinserver at :- www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm

Rdesktop at :- rdesktop.org