Virtual environments

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calymea
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Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Hi, I am considering Virtual Environments such as Virtual Box, VM Ware, etc to have Linux Mint as the host system and M$ Windows as a guest system. I would like to hear from people about their experiences with the various ones available, such things as ease of setup and use, compatability and overall performance. I will be using Windows XP as the guest system. Please include as much info as possible. Thank you.
P.S. I will be running Mint 5 Elyssa as the host system.
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MagnusB
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by MagnusB »

VirtualBox OSE is by far the easiest to use. Took me an hour to get it working, mostly because Windows installations is so damn slow...
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rbanavara

Re: Virtual environments

Post by rbanavara »

All VMs are equally slow (though they differ when comapred again one another). VMware has an option of pre allocating all the disk space, which ineffect may speed up the installation to some extent. Have not seen this in Virtual Box (might have missed / hidden some where in the config options).

But my vote goes to VB as its easy to uses & open source!
MagnusB
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by MagnusB »

Not completely open source though, IIRC there are some modules or parts that are still proprietary... But it beats VMware in ease of use, maybe VM has some more functionality, but for me, ease of use is the most important issue.
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Fred

Re: Virtual environments

Post by Fred »

VMware still has some features that VirtualBox doesn't have, but I prefer VB. As MagnusB said, VB is easier to setup and use. I think it is a bit faster too, but it might just be my imagination. :-)

Fred
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atlef
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by atlef »

I to would give two thumbs up to VirtualBox. I use it on both Windows hosts and Ubuntu hosts for all my virtual needs.
I use VirtualBox-ose which is the open source version. It lacks support for usb, but have so far not needed that. If you do, get the closed source one. Check here for the differences between them.
And you can also get ready made images here.

atlef.
miket

Re: Virtual environments

Post by miket »

Hi !

Having played with them all, but VirtualBox gets my vote, it's simple to install and configure, performance is on par if not better in some cases than other VM packages and is the most "Compatible".
I use VB OSE version and have many different O/S's running under it without any problems at all.

There are ways of getting around the lack of USB support in the OSE version.

Mike.
Last edited by miket on Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
calymea
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Hi everyone. Ok, from the replies, Virtual Box is looking good! Please keep the stories about your experiences coming, I just want to get as much info as possible before I commit myself. Thanks all.
calymea
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Mike, (AvanceIT), you mention in your reply to my post that there is a way around the lack of USB support in the OSE version of VB. Could you give a few details please mate? Thanks, Rod.
miket

Re: Virtual environments

Post by miket »

Hi Calymea,
calymea wrote:Mike, (AvanceIT), you mention in your reply to my post that there is a way around the lack of USB support in the OSE version of VB. Could you give a few details please mate? Thanks, Rod.
Of course !
It's actually really simple ... I like simple because it is normally the most reliable ;)

So here goes :

Firstly make sure your VirtualMachine is "not" running!

Now create a folder in your linux Mint Home folder, call it whatever you want but for this example I'll call it "vbsharedfolder"

If you want to do this from the command line open a terminal and enter the commands below :

Code: Select all

cd
mkdir vbsharedfolder
You can of course do it from the GUI too !

Now, go into VirtualBox, select your VirtualMachine and then select "Shared Folders" on the right.
Click the "Add A New Shared Folder" button on the right hand side of the window, (it's the little blue folder with the green cross on it!)

In the "Folder Path" field navigate to the folder you created above in your home folder.
In the "Folder Name" field type "vbsharedfolder" or whatever you called it above.

Click OK to create the shared folder.

So we are now almost there, just one little step left to do.
Whenever you plug in a USB memory stick or insert a CDROM disc or an SD card or USB hard drive etc etc it is always mounted under /media in Linux Mint,
so we know where the device is going to appear. To make this also appear to your VirtualMachine via the sharedfolder we created above
we need to add a "Soft Link" (Shortcut) from inside your sharedfolder pointing to /media.
To do this we need to drop to the command line again, so open a terminal and enter the following commands :

Code: Select all

cd
cd vbsharedfolder
ln -s /media ./media
Ok, so the "ln" command above creates the soft link for us.

So now all you need to do is start you VirtualMachine, I am assuming windows XP here, but you can also do this in Vista if you like.

Once In Windows XP, Open the "My Computer" window.
Goto the "Tools" menu item at the top and select "Map Network Drive".

Select which drive letter you want to mount the shared folder under in the top field, then in the bottom field enter :

Code: Select all

\\VBOXSVR\vbsharedfolder
Click Finish ...
You now should have the shared folder mounted !
Plug in your USB memory stick/hard drive/SD card etc ...

Go into windows XP in your VirtualMachine and open the shared folder where you will see a folder called "media",
if you double click this you will be transported into the /media folder under Linux Mint where you will see your
USB memory stick/hard drive/SD card etc as just another folder, double click it and you will see all of it's contents !

That's it, nice and simple but very reliable!

I hope this helps ...

Enjoy !

Mike.
calymea
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Hi, just went and had a look at the download section of Sun's site for Virtualbox. I saw there were several different platforms and you have to get the right one. Which is the correct one for Mint 5? Thanks. Rod.
miket

Re: Virtual environments

Post by miket »

Hi Rod,
calymea wrote:Hi, just went and had a look at the download section of Sun's site for Virtualbox. I saw there were several different platforms and you have to get the right one. Which is the correct one for Mint 5? Thanks. Rod.
I've always just got it from the Ubuntu Repo's ...
Open a terminal and just enter the following command :

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install virtualbox
This will install the OSE version for you.

Mike.
calymea
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Thanks Mike, sounds like the way to go. Rod.
calymea
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by calymea »

Anthony, had a look in the repo's, did a reload to make sure I had the latest version, it's still v.1.5 with the bug you mentioned about sharing drives. I will definately need to share drives, so I will need v.1.6. As I mentioned before I went to "Sun's Virtualbox
download site and needed to select the right platform to use, could you or someone else please advise which is the correct one for Mint 5 Elyssa. I don't mind paying for the closed source if I have to. Thanks again. Rod.
rbanavara

Re: Virtual environments

Post by rbanavara »

calymea, since Elyssa is based on hardy, Ubuntu 8.04 would be closest you can get.
eeezzzeee

Re: Virtual environments

Post by eeezzzeee »

I use virtualbox on both my main computers. My desktop is a Elyssa host with a windows guest and a Ozos guest. On my laptop I have a windows host (i know, i know) and linux guests, again runs great. The hardest part about setting them up was the shared folder thing, but event that didnt' take very long, just read the documentation and/or search there forums for answers. I gave my XP guest 1 gig of ram and it runs just like it did on my desktop. They only thing you have to watch out for is not every program has full functionality in virtualbox. If i remember right programs like photoshop have problems with shading and rendering, and the newer versions don't fully work. virtualbox is a great way to try out other distros too. I have experimented with about 13 distros in virtualbox this year already, but like I said before, they all live in my Minty world.
rhvkl

Re: Virtual environments

Post by rhvkl »

I prefer VMWare Server:
a) Easy to use,
b) more compatible,
c) more corporate,
c) images spreaded all over the net (i.e. pc-bsd)
rcdeacon
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Re: Virtual environments

Post by rcdeacon »

I have had some problems with virtualization in Elyssa but in Daryna it worked great! I used virtualbox (not the ose edition) and had usb working flawlessly. It does take a little tweaking to get usb working but once done it was great.
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eeezzzeee

Re: Virtual environments

Post by eeezzzeee »

@chiskop-

Sorry if i posted misinformation about photoshop in virtualbox, I thought I remembered reading on the Virtualbox forums problems with CS3, and that they had just gotten CS2 working right, I probably read an old post or something.
Also Ozos is a prettycool e17 distro, I started a thread about it in the other distro section, works great in virtualbox if you wanna give it a try.
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