Hi all

I spotted an identical post 18 months ago but now wondering if things have moved on. I run Windows XP and I have vmware installed. I am downloaded latest version of Suse (jeez that Novell navigation is so confusing!!!) I am using a bittorrent and its slow but Novell's download site stopped downloading the first CD after 3 minutes!!

Anyway - I was going to install Suse under VMWare but I am worried that it will not work - or not work well - anyone with info?

Its a nice idea to switch between the two OS - a lot of stuff I do and apps I use depend on XP but I prefer Linux. I havent used Linux for a few years and I am really looking forward to using different skins with KDE - I forget what name you guys use for skins.

Anyhow - another question is - can I install Suse to dual boot with XP - ie is it safe - I dont want to trash my XP work. Finally, this will be installed on my notebook/laptop - I have an external 300GB drive off a USB2 port - does this pose any problems??

thanks

george

I run 3 Linux distros on the same system with XP. I'm about to add a 4th. I would personally use VMWare for old OS'.

I would actually suggest the opposite. I run VMware on Suse 10.0, and then run WinXP and Win2000 as two VMware guests. I find that SuSE 10 as the base operating system is robust and fast, and the great thing is that the Win VM's, I build them, install the software, and take a snapshot. Then in a few months, when their registry is decaying or corroding, I just reset them to the intial snapshot I made intially. Now I have windows that doesn't decay with time. This windows decay has been the bane of my life for years, the need to reformat, reinstall every 3 months.
I have a Dell Latttiude D610 with 2 Gb of RAM. The secret for good VM performance is having lots of RAM, and making VM's which don't need to much RAM

thanks guys for the info - gives me a lot more confidence - and pointers!

george

MY :

I love vmware and its capabilities, but it still not the same as running a normal OS.
Performance isn't what it should be and if we are talking about just a normal desktop use, one should run it natively to get the full benefits. Using vmware always need a lot of RAM. So remember that.

Suse can dualboot with XP. Although the easy way is to install XP first.
If you aren't sure, do you really like suse, one really good option is to use the LIVE version.

If you want to actually use it just dual-boot. Vmware is to me really only for testing apps and things on whatever OS. It's not the same as really running it.

I agree that currently for good performance, VMware (ie VMPlayer or VM Workstation) needs lots of RAM. I have 2 gigabytes of RAM in my notebook.
But I would disagree that VM's are currently only "for testing apps". I run WinXP and Win2k VM's all the type as production windows machines. And because of Windows problems with registry decay and clutter, and the progressive degradation of Windows OS machines with time, I would contend that a fresh install VM, reset periodically with snapshots, is faster than a native Windows XP machine that has been used for 6 months.

Also though with the Hardware Virtualization hooks get put into the upcoming processors, running VM's will get only faster in the future.

Yeah, it depends on what you are going to be using it for. VMware is somewhat resource-intensive. If you are using it for testing, that's one thing. If you are going to try and run Enemy Territory on it or some other such game, you should do the dual-boot option.