G'day,
I currently manage a small network of 5 Dell workstations for a small business. Each of the workstations is running Windows XP Pro.

One of the workstations is also acting as a file, print and internet proxy, as well as allowing users to log in with their roaming profile. At present it would not be viable to have a dedicated system acting as a file and print server and a proxy.

On this computer I am thinking of running Linux, with Samba, a web proxy and printing as well as to make it act as the host machine for a Windows virtual machine. To do so I will need to use a tool like VMWare, however I was wondering what Open source alternatives exist that do the same or similar to VMWare and would allow me to run Windows XP. The computer in question is a P4 2.8 GHz machine with 512MB of RAM and a 80GB hard disk.

Thanks very much,

Nathan

Hi again,
I have managed to find some info on two alternatives... bochs and plex86. Plex86 does not do what I would like, because it does not allow me to run Windows over a linux host. Bochs however seems to be what I want. So I am curious to know If anyone has got XP up and runnin over a Linux host using bochs...

Thanks

You might also wish to check:

Colinux - http://www.colinux.org/
Colinux Tutorial - http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...ux.html?page=1

QEMU (Host / Guest : Lin + Win) - http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
Qemu OS Images - http://www.freeoszoo.org/index.php

cheers

sdrubble

Thanks very much...
Qemu looks to be the most desirable tool for what I need. Do you have any idea as to how to start a virtual machine tho? I have downloaded and installed Qemu... made a hard disk image.... but when i run qemu and input the disk image name nothing happens. Similarly when I pass a cd iso to qemu nothing happens

Regards,
Nathan

Sorry, I haven't used QEMU myself yet so I have no idea of where your problem fits in the general picture.

I'd suggest that you search the mailing lists on QEMU site and, if nothing interesting is found, that you present your problem right there.

Good luck !

sdrubble