Virtualization Makes Running Linux a Snap
Many people love Linux but aren't able to commit to using it full time. Some folks use certain peripherals that Linux can't yet accommodate, while others need applications for which suitable open source options don't yet exist. Fortunately, virtualization makes it possible to put your favorite Linux distribution right on your Mac or Windows PC.
To virtualize a computer means to section off an area of the hard drive and put a second, fully-functional operating system on it, essentially turning one computer into two. Let's take a look at the various virtualization options to see which one might be right for you.
Mac users have a few different choices when it comes to putting Linux on an iMac or MacBook. Leopard, the most recent version of Mac OS X, comes with the Boot Camp virtualization tool built right in.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 1361 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Portability too
My "personal" personal computer is a 250GB USB disk from Western Digital, $130 at Costco and impressively fast. On it is a VMWare Pocket Ace package that I cooked up. 25GB; plenty of space. It contains PCLinuxOS. All my personal emails and documents and web browsing is done in this virtual machine. Because it's on a portable USB disk and includes VMWare Player for Windows and Linux, I can walk up to any Windows or Linux PC and be working in my own desktop in a minute or two. Speed is excellent, and security is superb. All my email traffic is encrypted, for example, courtesy of encrypted connections to my email providers, gmail and luxsci.com, so the host computer and ISP can't eavesdrop. Keyloggers are generally stymied by VMWare, too.
Coolness. Try it sometime.
re: Portability
You should write up a detailed howto on your setup.
Portability.
Sounds Good write it up. Take the credit and the article.
There are about a dozen ways to skin that cat but we should all learn. My private concern is not to use FAT so I can put a DVD iso on it (but how to do this with windows and linux targets) . Yes I forgot! I have a USB 500mb My Book (no hypen to drive Linux File Systems crazy).
Cheers John
Hasta Le Vista Baby!
Dual booting is a completely
Dual booting is a completely different animal (no pun on Leopard intended) then running a virtual machine. VM users must realize they are running two OS's at the same time,, a "host" machine and a "guest" machine. The user must have sufficient built-in memory for both OS's to co-exit.
For example, let's say a user has a machine with 1GB of memory. His (or her) native system is Linux distro "A". He sets up a virtual machine with 512MB of memory and installs Linux distro "B" or maybe Windows XP. All is well.
But what if the machine has only 512MB? Now the memory must be divided for two 256MB machines. Performance suffers.
And finally what if the base machine is 1GB but has Vista installed? You get DSL! That's not Damn Small Linux... it's Damn Slow Linux!!
Been there, done that, enough said.