Windows on top of Linux
 

Hi ,

I mostly work on Linux but would like to do some testing on windows as well for a website i am developing . Just wondering if there is some way to virtually boot windows on top of linux ( kind of like user mode linux or virtual machine ) .

Thanks ,
vivekian

VMware work quite well if you have the $$$

I do it as a matter of routine. I have a software package I sell that, sadly, is Windows only.

I don't boot Windows; I start VMWare in Linux and load Windows there. I do all my development work in a virtual machine, running inside Linux. Works wonderfully.

qemu
 

This works great

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

hmm any idea if that last link works on Ubuntu?? I see it works on Debian, so I'm just double checking.

Hope so I haven't been able to get back into Windows since my last 3 distro installs.. Its in my grub menu, but it just locks up and I have to restart. But if I can use that program just to load my existing OS I'll be good to go.

if you get the source tarball, it shouldn't matter what distro you're using. compile it. there's also a precompiled binary there you could download and run if you just want to try it.

cool thanks for the reply...I tried the binary and it works...now I just have to figure out how to get it to launch Windows on my hd. It seems to be a little tricky.

You can try qemu /dev/hda as su

You may also want to install windows on a virtual partition (better than running as root)

Also, I recommend using the qemu accelerator kernel module, It works really well.

Check this forum for help:

http://www.dad-answers.com/qemu-forum/index.php

ah so thats how you do it... I was doing qemu -hda1

I was told in order to use that accellerator I'd have to compile Qemu from the CVS or something....that sounds like a pain to me. I'm running this on Ubuntu which is Debian based.

oh and that link requires the Hebrew language pack which I can't install on this computer...lol so it doesn't show up at all

I understand that qemu is now the core for the new win4lin pro, which will run XP (experimental now) but it's not as cheap as the original win4lin, but might offer better performance ans slightly less cost than VMWare... I think it also means that qemu is only semi-free... I haven't looked at their licence tho, but I have a feeling that it will be hard to get a really good free version if they are trying to sell win4lin pro as well...

Unfortunately, writing free software puts no food on the table. This means that you only do it some of the time, and when you have something you think is really good, you often choose to use it to put food on the table.

I have no problem with that, and I have a paid copy of win4lin 5... Just a FYI that I found out on the win4lin list :)