[ltp] Re: Ultrabay hard drive

[Aaron Mulder]

I use VMware on a T43p/SuSE 10 for generating diagrams with XMLSpy
(and, ironically, capturing them with Gimp for Windows), and it seems
plenty responsive.  Every once in a while it freaks out if I suspend
the VM on one network and wake it up on another, but I have my
shapshot to roll back to if necessary.  :)  One pleasant surprise was
that I was able to use the same Windows XP license key for the VM as I
did for the laptop itself (I actually have a small Windows dual boot,
though I think at this point I could get away without it).

Aaron

On 1/29/06, lou <lou@lous-stuff.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 28 January 2006 13:37, Josh wrote:
> > I looked at vmware a little bit. Wouldn't it slow the
> > computer down to use Windows as well as programs on
> > top of Linux? For example, running Photoshop and
> > Image Ready on Windows in VMware while running Firefox
> > and a text editor also? Or will it work reasonably
> > well? Is 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 t=
hat
> you can evaluate VMWare Workstation for 30 days. This would allow you to
> install a Windows guest on a Linux host. I suspect that you would have to
> look around some to find a Virtual Machine of Windows to test (licensing
> requirements), or someone to share theirs. I would probably loan someone =
a VM
> but I certainly wouldn't make it available on the Internet.
>
> Another place to ask these questions is the VMWare forums:
> 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 SCS=
I
> hard drives), most Windows programs run as well as or (seemingly) faster =
than
> native on XP or W2K (I use W2K for most stuff). Like, Visual Studio 2005
> seems like it runs faster (probably not, haven't benchmarked). I tried to=
 run
> Nero to burn a DVD and got errors about the DVD burner. Since it is just =
as
> easy to burn from Linux, I didn't pursue it further. Most stuff and progr=
ams
> run very well, if the drivers for the devices exist on the host system. T=
here
> are a few things that seem slower, like FTP (again, I just do it from Lin=
ux).
> FTP seems to suck a lot of system resources, even other Linux programs se=
em
> to bog down at times. I do not use Photoshop, so can't comment on that.  =
I
> run Visual Studio, Visual FoxPro, Quicken H&O, Directory Opus (would neve=
r
> give that up), RSSOwl, Agent and the Sonicwall VPN Global Client software=
 (no
> Linux version and a requirement for some work I do), and UltraVNC. All ar=
e
> pretty much as responsive on this system although I suspect that dual
> processors makes a difference (based on my limited testing on the Thinkpa=
d).
>
> OTOH: on the Thinkpad, things are not so rosy, but I am still in test mod=
e. I
> am also pretty stupid about  Linux (please don't point out the obvious :-=
)
> With power management installed, some things crawled. I tried many sugges=
ted
> fixes from both VMWare and other sources, non of which helped much, but t=
hat
> could be due to errors between the earphones.
> Example: doing a ping from a command prompt, resulted in a 15 second dela=
y
> between replies. Before turning off transition effects, W2K was almost
> impossible to use. FTP runs about half as fast, maybe even slower. I
> reinstalled SUSE without ACPI and performace is very good (so far the onl=
y
> really slow thing I have seen is still ftp), but I haven't tested much. I
> keep running into stuff with lack of power management (like suspend) and
> system hangs. I am going to look into better video drivers (ATI), if I ca=
n
> find them. I have only worked on this intermittently, this stuff is a bla=
ck
> hole where you throw time. I am probably going to install RH Fedora, it s=
eems
> like most of the Thinkpad users I talk to have better success with that, =
but
> none of the people I know use VMWare with it.
>
> I can't imagine going back to dual boot (well, maybe on the thinkpad), VM=
Ware
> was well worth the money, AFAIAC. But then, I really liked OS/2 way back
> when.
>
> >
> > (I have 1GB memory.)
>
> That should let you run a couple of 256Meg Virtual machines just fine, I =
would
> think. I can run 3 VM's before it starts to swap, two of them use 512 meg=
.
> One argument for using W2K as a VM guest, is that it uses less memory. I =
also
> have an install of Windows Server 2003 for testing. I maintain a couple o=
f
> clients with W2003 Domains. I mostly do program/macro development in the
> Windows OS's. Make sure you keep your VM "hard disks" defragged.
>
> If you are dual booting, I think it would be worth your time to take a lo=
ok,
> get the 30 day evaluation. Worst case, I will just carry the 2 hard drive=
s.
>
> --
>
>   Lou
>
>     --- __@
>    -- _-\<,_
>  --- (_)/ (_)
>
> "Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now."
> --
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