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virtual machine

jamesleecoleman

Hello,

I was wondering what virtual machine software is the best that I should use. I have microsoft virtual pc but I'm having trouble with it trying to run live cd images that I have. Like the screen gets messed up or the image just takes a long time to boot. I just want something where I can load a few images and then keep the changes that I have made when I exit the program. I do have SUSE 10.3 installed on a laptop but I dont wanna keep it on all night while I have my desktop on trying to learn linux.

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Comments

dynamik

What are your system specs?

I've heard Linux on Virtual PC is hit and miss. It's a Microsoft product, and it's really only "supposed" to be used with Windows.

I prefer VMWare Workstation 6.0 by far, but it's not free. I've had no problems running CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, etc.

You can also download the free VMWare Player and maybe find a pre-built virtual machine in the distro you're looking for.

jamesleecoleman

My system specs are:

two hard drives: one 250 gb and another one 320 gb both sata
two cd/dvd burners
nforce 680i sli se motherboard
7950 gt oc video card
pentium d 930 3.0 ghz processor
2x1 gigs of 800 mhz ram
550 watt power supply

I looked up VMware and found the server set up so maybe that'll help me out. i'll give that and work station a try.

dynamik

Your specs look good. Memory is usually the most in-demand resource. You can get a decent number of machines running with 2gb.

I'm not that familiar with the server version, but I believe that would be more useful if you have a dedicated computer for all your virtual machines. The workstation version allows you to run the virtual machines from within your host OS, so it's really convenient. There's free downloads (trials) of both, so give them a shot and let us know what you think.

jamesleecoleman

I didn't really want to go through the workstation trial so I just tried the server and it is really nice. The thing about it is that it made windows kinda slow when was loading the gui after reboot (like 3 min before I could use it). Thanks for the information. Now I'm just waiting for this linux+ book so I can start doing something

Slowhand

Running the Live OSes in a virtual environment probably is going to get you problems in both Virtual PC and VM Ware. The only installs I've had trouble with, so far, with Virtual PC have been Fedora 7, (as opposed to 5, which worked just fine,) Solaris 10, and Slackware 11. Other than that, I've had good luck using Virtual PC. As for VM Ware, I haven't used it as much, so maybe you can find out from some of the other VM veterans what works and what doesn't.

jamesleecoleman

Some live images work and other times they dont with Virtual PC. I've used fedora core, ubuntu, suse, dsm, knoppix, and a few others on Virtual PC. Yet with VMware I didnt have any problems when I first got it. When I first started with Virtual PC I had trouble with the different distros plus the fact that I couldn't play fear with it on my computer

so I guess maybe its just our computers????

Everlife

I've run VMWare with Fedora 7, Fedora 8, CentOS, and Slackware and have never had an issue. I'd highly recommend it if you're doing the virtual route, it's very much worth the money.

BeaverC32

I'd highly recommend it if you're doing the virtual route, it's very much worth the money.

Very much worth it...especially since VMware server is 100% FREE. Stay away from Virtual PC for any OS other than Windows; you will save yourself the headache if you do.

nel

i use vmware server and its worked well for everything ive used so far, although i havent tried many linux os's.. i rate it alot better than the MS VM products available. i run 10 images on my laptop and it works pretty well.

cacharo

I have had problems with VPC using Linux also. For free software I was told VirtualBox works well with Linux also. But I prefer VMWare by far.

Everlife

BeaverC32 wrote:

I'd highly recommend it if you're doing the virtual route, it's very much worth the money.

Very much worth it...especially since VMware server is 100% FREE. Stay away from Virtual PC for any OS other than Windows; you will save yourself the headache if you do.

Hehe, I've never used VMWare server, I use VMware Workstation. I'm not sure about the difference, but the $189 was worth it for me.