Seamlessly Integrating WinXP into Linux
 

Hi,

I'm thinking of integrating WinXP with my Linux Mint Helena just for one app: Yahoo Messenger.

Well, I tried Gyachi & while it works perfectly, there's only one thing which I'm not satisfied with and that is when people using Yahoo Messenger on windows try to call me (not voice chat, but the actual "call" feature there is at the top left hand of the chat window), I do not receive their call - I don't even know that they're calling me.
Else I'm perfectly happy with Linux. (I've even tried installing Yahoo Messenger with Wine and the Linux version of Yahoo messenger, but they won't even load/login.

I have read the following and feel this can be a solution:

• http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/124908
• http://lifehacker.com/367714/run-win...y-inside-linux

However, I do have some concerns:

1. What is the difference between VM Ware & VirtualBox
2. What is QEMU?
3. Will WinXP load and remain in memory by default when I boot the machine, or will it only come up when I call for it? I ask this because I know I'm low on system resources and the ONLY app I'll be using WinXP for, is Yahoo Messenger, which I use for only about 1hr a day. Besides this I do not need WinXP.
4. My machine is a Genuine PIV 3.GHz with 512MB RAM. Can it handle this load? (when I'm running WinXP with Yahoo Messenger, I'll not load any other apps, but maybe only Firefox in Linux).
5. The reason I shifted to Linux is because, for some reason WinXP was giving blue screens & I was fed up. Now if WinXP runs as a guest on Linux, can WinXP start causing problems and crashes and blue screens?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and help.

Well, first off... it doesn't seem like it, but just in case, if you are just using yahoo messenger for chatting, then i believe the program pidgin(or epiphany i think is an updated version) can connect to yahoo messenger. I believe it only supports chat, which explains my above statement. However, to your questions:

1. Truthfully, in my experience, there isn't too much of one. I personally prefer virtual box, as it requires no key code nor registration(unless they changed something recently) for installation. It was also available in the ubuntu and fedora repositories, if i remember correctly. Plus i just like the interface. EDIT: Just checked on my fedora 12 box, and virtual box is not in the repositories... so either they removed it, or I just thought i saw it. There are still rpms on the web site, though. Also, you can add their repository in order to be able to update along with everything else: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads.

2. QEMU is a much lighter weight, but generally less user friendly, virtual machine manager.

3. Not unless you set it up that way. By default, you manually start it.

4. I think it will probably be tough for the machine to run it. You have to allocate a certain amount of memory for windows, and i don't like running windows xp with under 512 mb of ram. However, I believe you could get it to run with 256 mb, but it will likely be very slow. Linux can run well with low ram though, just make sure you have a good size swap partition!

5. While i have heard about some viruses and such being able to affect the linux machine when they are installed on the virtual machine, I haven't had it happen to me. I'm not sure whether these rumours are true, so can someone else comment about them? In theory though, no, windows xp should not affect linux in anyway whatsoever. Worst case, windows will crash and linux will still be running.

First off, I have no experience with VMWare.

I've run Windows XP on both QEMU and VirtualBox. I like QEMU's lightweight interface, but in my experience VirtualBox is more reliable for running XP guests. I've had VM's freeze on me several times in QEMU, but haven't really investigated why, since VBox "just works."

I give my XP VM 512M of RAM and it's plenty for something like an IM client, but my machine has 2G physical RAM. Is there a technical reason you can't upgrade your RAM? If not it's well worth the pennies!

Seems like overkill, to load an entire OS just for Yahoo messenger. Have you tried Kopete or Pidgin? I know pidgin works fine for text-chat, but Kopete supports web-cam/voice as well, and also works with Yahoo. Not sure about the 'call' feature, though, but it's worth a try.
VMWare is essentially its own OS, allowing you to load other OS'es on it as 'guests'. Virtualbox needs a base OS, but will let you load other OS'es into it.
It's a processor emulator. Useful if you have an x86 based box, and need to run code written for an ARM CPU, for instance.
Nope, it loads when you call it, just like any other process.
512 MB might be fine for Linux alone, but if you're firing up Virtualbox, and WinXP, you're going to quickly run out of steam. Get more RAM, or try other Linux messenger clients. There are more than Kopete and Pidgin...take a look around, one might fit your needs.
Windows isn't going to be more or less stable than it was before. It'll still crash beautifully, but only take down the virtual instance, not your whole box.

I essentially agree that it's an overkill to install a whole OS just for what *I* consider a "candy" feature, which is not really necessary (overall when you have similar services that work on linux, like skype).

Not sure what do you mean on these. ALL of them (wmware, virtualbox and qemu) are the same kind of critter: virtual machines. Neither of them is an OS. In fact, if my memory serves right, virtualbox started as a fork of qemu.

They emulate a hardware PC which is separated (logically/virtually speaking) from your physical hardware/machine. Inside this virtual machine you can install whatever OS you want (there might be some limitations, depending on the concrete machine).

The three VMs differ in a number of aspects, like the architectures they can run on, the architectures they can emulate, the hardware they can emulate/bridge, etc. I know that vmware used to have experimental support for 3d acceleration for example, I think that the latest virtualbox also has directx support which is probably an interesting feature for gamers. Never tried it myself though.

I'd look for a viable alternative instead. Either use Windows, use another IM application or use an alternate protocol like Skype.

This sounds like you are running Linux just for the joy of it. If all you are going to run is Firefox and a VM with Yahoo then you could perfectly be using Windows instead. Don't expect a good performance in general with only 512 mb of RAM. It doesn't matter it's only Yahoo what you are going to run on the VM. You forget that you will be running two hole OSes simultaneously. OSes also eat ram. XP will eat like 128 mb just booted, or more depending on your setup. Linux can be configured to be light, but Firefox (or any other modern web browser for that matter) is a wale, no way around that.

XP will be XP no matter you install it on a hardware machine or in a software machine. All XP will see is a machine it doesn't matter if the machine is a real one or not. The good thing is that you can always backup the VM and restore it when it starts doing funky things. But you could as well do a backup of a real Windows installation with something like dd (from Linux) or Norton Ghost (from Windows), so that's nothing specific that you gain with using an VM under Linux instead of a real machine.

My view of the matter is that 'course you can kill a fly with an hydrogen bomb.

I forgot to mention that you can save machine states, kind of like hibernating your virtual PC, so when you're not using your virtual XP box you can put it away and it will take up no resources except HD space. Then you can start it up again with zero boot up time. You can also go back to a previous saved state if there's a crash. I believe all three emulators have some provision for this.

Even if it's overkill, it is a worthy exercise just for the experience IMO.

I beg to differ..while they all offer, to a point, the same thing (virtual machines), they differ.

VMWare is it's own beast. You get, essentially, a Linux kernel, and the 'machines' are in virtual containers under it. The particular one I'm familiar with is VMware ESX.

Virtualbox can be loaded on top of another OS, then have different 'machines' created on it.

QEMU is a processor emulator, so an OS written for an embedded CPU, can be booted up under an x64, for example.

Don't forget about co-linux and even cgywin.


ESX claims to be a true multi OS solution. I just don't have a supported NIC to try it.

ESX is great, but you need a big, honkin' system (technical term. :) ) to really get the most use out of it.

Set up a couple...one box with 8 Xeon's, 32GB of RAM, and SAN connectivity. Have 10 production systems running on that one box, several with hot-standby systems...images that are configured to boot up and take over when the primary dies.

Of course, the "all your eggs in one basket" thing applies too...because all of them croak if the one SAN switch dies, etc. Apply ESX only after serious consideration, but it's great in alot of circumstances.

I didn't see that on the minimum hardware requirements. :) Would that be under big or honkin?

Depends on your vendor...:)

I like this.:)

frankly, I like linux - it's more stable, works faster on the same machine and I don't want to move away. I was so tired of the blue screen's in xp, that I was seriously convinced there was something wrong with my hardware - I even resintalled and tried many things but no luck.

I've tried Kopete, pigen, gyache and I like gyache the most - it's the closest to yahoo messenger that we use on windows, but the only fact being as I said in my initial postThis is a feature I really need and the fact that I'm ready to do all this says it all.

Ok, I'd love to add on memory and went around doing some shopping today for an additional 512MB. Unfortunately no one seemed to be having the same speed DDR2 as what I have, so it would be having to just buy a new 1GB card (hoping my m/board will support the new ones - my current RAM card is DDR2 PC2-5300 and no one had this - all what i saw was DDR2 PC2-6400 and my m/board is about 2.5yrs old)
Can I install virtualbox and give 256 to linux and 256 to XP and when I get a 1GB, then re-allocate memory giving 512 to each?

Ok, I've started installing VirtualBox and following the instructions as per
lifehacker.com/367714/run-windows-apps-seamlessly-inside-linux
and have reached the step where virtualbox is making a new virtual disk (I chose Fixed-size storage and selected 5GB space) As for the RAM allocated to the guest OS, I set 256MB).

The problem is, it's just been stuck at 0% for the past 1/2hr. Does it really take so long/Is it doing something, or has it crashed or something?