[kwlug-disc] vmware questions

[Chris Bruner]

Oksana Goertzen wrote:
> I personally have both VMware workstation and VirtualBox on my Ubuntu 
> machine and far prefer VirtualBox - so you may want to look at that as 
> an alternative.  You can also install ESXi - I'm not sure what it's 
> called now under vSphere... and run guest os's on top of that.. so you 
> could run Mandriva when you need it and Windows when you need it or 
> both.  If you want to make snapshots and the like, you're probably 
> better off going with VMmare.. but if you can - try out both creating 
> some test images.  I use VMware at work to manage multiple servers but 
> for my personal machine - I use VirtualBox.
>
> VMware has a utility that will allow you to cold clone a Windows 
> machine.. (p to v =physical to virtual)...though I'm not sure how it 
> might work in a dual boot system.  It's probably easiest to simply 
> reinstall Windows in a new VM.  Some of the info about managing disk 
> size can be a bit confusing and varies depending on vendor.  I've 
> found it reasonably difficult to expand a VM once you're created it.. 
> so you probably want to make your XP machine vm as large as you think 
> you'll want it.
>
> Good Luck!
>
> Oksana

I second that opinion. I've just gone through using VirtualBox and found 
it a treat. It is easier to just reinstall your XP.  I started with a 
20GB vista and did the install. It had some rough spots (vista did) on 
startup because it wanted to install more applications. (Honestly why 
isn't 20GB enough to load one DVD of software?).   Anyways, I then 
decided that wasn't big enough so I created an 80GB virtual disk and 
then with both virtual hard disks attached to the machine I virtually 
booted off clonezilla and cloned my 20GB onto the 80GB. Next booting off 
  gparted, which was able to repartition without damage. Windows wanted 
to check things over on the new disk but was happy.

All in all, I was able to
1. Install Windows Vista from DVD
2. Boot from either Hard disk or CD
3. run Vista faster then on my dedicated Vista Box. (It might be that 
the virtual on is on a faster machine though so your mileage will vary).

One thing that VMWare has that Virtual Box doesn't is the ability to 
create a clone off your originally installed XP.  I've not used this, 
but I've seen discussions on it.
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Insurance Squared Inc. 
> <gcooke at insurancesquared.com <mailto:gcooke at insurancesquared.com>> wrote:
>
>     I'm installing vmware server on my linux box and am a bewildered
>     by the process.
>
>     My machine has a native XP installed.  I then later installed
>     Mandriva on top of that as a dual boot system.  Now I installed
>     vmware with the intention of running my windows stuff without
>     rebooting.  Can I run windows through vmware by accessing the
>     original xp install on the machine?  Or do I need to start fresh,
>     install just mandriva then vmware, then install windows from my
>     CD's using vmware?
>
>     g.
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     kwlug-disc_kwlug.org <http://kwlug-disc_kwlug.org> mailing list
>     kwlug-disc_kwlug.org <http://kwlug-disc_kwlug.org>@kwlug.org
>     <http://kwlug.org>
>     http://astoria.ccjclearline.com/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc_kwlug.org mailing list
> kwlug-disc_kwlug.org at kwlug.org
> http://astoria.ccjclearline.com/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>