[ltp] Re: Ultrabay hard drive

[lou]

On Saturday 28 January 2006 13:37, Josh wrote:
> I looked at vmware a little bit. =A0Wouldn't it slow the
> computer down to use Windows as well as programs on
> top of Linux? =A0For example, running Photoshop and
> Image Ready on Windows in VMware while running Firefox
> and a text editor also? =A0Or will it work reasonably
> well? =A0Is there any part of Windows that doesn't run
> well under VMware?


I would add to the very good advice about using VMware Player, the fact tha=
t=20
you can evaluate VMWare Workstation for 30 days. This would allow you to=20
install a Windows guest on a Linux host. I suspect that you would have to=20
look around some to find a Virtual Machine of Windows to test (licensing=20
requirements), or someone to share theirs. I would probably loan someone a =
VM=20
but I certainly wouldn't make it available on the Internet.=20

Another place to ask these questions is the VMWare forums:=20
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa

My (limited) experience is as follows:
On my Workstation (SUSE 10.0, dual 2.8 G Xeon processors, 2G RAM, 15K SCSI=
=20
hard drives), most Windows programs run as well as or (seemingly) faster th=
an=20
native on XP or W2K (I use W2K for most stuff). Like, Visual Studio 2005=20
seems like it runs faster (probably not, haven't benchmarked). I tried to r=
un=20
Nero to burn a DVD and got errors about the DVD burner. Since it is just as=
=20
easy to burn from Linux, I didn't pursue it further. Most stuff and program=
s=20
run very well, if the drivers for the devices exist on the host system. The=
re=20
are a few things that seem slower, like FTP (again, I just do it from Linux=
).=20
=46TP seems to suck a lot of system resources, even other Linux programs se=
em=20
to bog down at times. I do not use Photoshop, so can't comment on that.  I=
=20
run Visual Studio, Visual FoxPro, Quicken H&O, Directory Opus (would never=
=20
give that up), RSSOwl, Agent and the Sonicwall VPN Global Client software (=
no=20
Linux version and a requirement for some work I do), and UltraVNC. All are=
=20
pretty much as responsive on this system although I suspect that dual=20
processors makes a difference (based on my limited testing on the Thinkpad)=
=2E=20

OTOH: on the Thinkpad, things are not so rosy, but I am still in test mode.=
 I=20
am also pretty stupid about  Linux (please don't point out the obvious :-)
With power management installed, some things crawled. I tried many suggeste=
d=20
fixes from both VMWare and other sources, non of which helped much, but tha=
t=20
could be due to errors between the earphones.=20
Example: doing a ping from a command prompt, resulted in a 15 second delay=
=20
between replies. Before turning off transition effects, W2K was almost=20
impossible to use. FTP runs about half as fast, maybe even slower. I=20
reinstalled SUSE without ACPI and performace is very good (so far the only=
=20
really slow thing I have seen is still ftp), but I haven't tested much. I=20
keep running into stuff with lack of power management (like suspend) and=20
system hangs. I am going to look into better video drivers (ATI), if I can=
=20
find them. I have only worked on this intermittently, this stuff is a black=
=20
hole where you throw time. I am probably going to install RH Fedora, it see=
ms=20
like most of the Thinkpad users I talk to have better success with that, bu=
t=20
none of the people I know use VMWare with it.=20

I can't imagine going back to dual boot (well, maybe on the thinkpad), VMWa=
re=20
was well worth the money, AFAIAC. But then, I really liked OS/2 way back=20
when.=20
=20
>
> (I have 1GB memory.)

That should let you run a couple of 256Meg Virtual machines just fine, I wo=
uld=20
think. I can run 3 VM's before it starts to swap, two of them use 512 meg. =
=20
One argument for using W2K as a VM guest, is that it uses less memory. I al=
so=20
have an install of Windows Server 2003 for testing. I maintain a couple of=
=20
clients with W2003 Domains. I mostly do program/macro development in the=20
Windows OS's. Make sure you keep your VM "hard disks" defragged.=20

If you are dual booting, I think it would be worth your time to take a look=
,=20
get the 30 day evaluation. Worst case, I will just carry the 2 hard drives.

=2D-=20

  Lou

    --- __@
   -- _-\<,_   =20
 --- (_)/ (_) =20

"Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now."=20