Virtual PCs now mainstream
Oct 16th, 2007 by ShaunO
Emulation is one thing and virtualisation is another.
And virtualisation is now mainstream with good, free, tools available for all three main host operating systems (OS): Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.
For Windows and Mac you can use MS Virtual PC (in reality on a Mac OSX, PowerPC system, this is an emulator of course).
VirtualBox, also free, is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
A lot of emulation is difficult to setup up and even then sometimes disappointing in execution – it will always have a place as a learning, research, or ‘for fun’ tool.
Virtualisation – where you literally create a whole new ‘Virtual PC’, in software, on an existing host operating system – is a different creature.
It has been being used in professional IT environments for some time (where the not-free VMWare is a favourite) to gain greater efficiency and effectiveness from existing infrastructure.
Nowadays though it is increasingly used by ‘power users’ for a range of tasks from running multiple operating systems, to development and testing of software on different platforms.
It certainly puts the fun back into experimentation as you can safely experiment ‘inside’ a virtual PC, and, if something goes terribly wrong… well, no loss, shutdown that virtual PC, and try again. No risk to the host OS. The screenshot (click to enlarge) is an example – my Windows XP host operating system running three virtual PCs: a Ubuntu Linux, a Windows98SE, and Windows 2000.
It’s a great, and simple, way to try various Linux distributions too – download a ‘Live CD’ ISO image of your chosen flavour of Linux (e.g Ubuntu, Fedora or…), hook the ISO image up as a ‘virtual CD’ to a virtual PC, and boot!
I have had success installing both Ubuntu (7.10/Gnome) and Fedora (7/KDE) into VirtualBox and Virtual PC. Ubuntu does have a mouse issue which is easily resolved under Virtual PC.
Related Links:
- video step-by-step of Ubuntu Linux (6.x) in Virtual PC (three parts) – Video Part 1
- text step-by-step of Ubuntu Linux (6.x) in Virtual PC at Arcane Code
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