[gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
(at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.

   I ran XP & TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
expect this machine may be acceptable.

   To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:

1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?

2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
fetch restrictions...)

3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?

   For now I'm working from this list of documents and the index in
the upper right:

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/VMware_Workstation

Thanks!

- Mark

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Virtualization/WinXP

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/26/2010 09:55 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>     OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
> work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
> I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
> (at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
> under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.
>
>     I ran XP&  TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
> been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
> expect this machine may be acceptable.
>
>     To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:
>
> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?

Yea, but the version in portage in a bit outdated.  Current is 7.x while 
portage has up to 6.5.

Note that workstation is not free (beer or otherwise.)  VMWare Server is 
free (beer), but last time I looked, it's not as good as Workstation.

VirtualBox is free (there's free beer version and free speech version too.)

All of the above are able to run XP, Vista and 7.  VMWare Workstation is 
the fastest (it runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 at pretty much 
native speed here; I can compare because I have W7 also installed for 
real; I'm on a Gentoo/W7 dual boot system.)


> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?

Illegally created ones, yes.


> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
> fetch restrictions...)

VMWare Player is free (beer) is a cut-down version of Workstation.  I 
find it sucks because of the limited amount of configuration options and 
crappy GUI.


> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?

VirtualBox.  Not as fast as VMWare, but should be fast enough.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Marko Obrovac]

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Hello Mark,

2010/1/26 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>

> Hi,
>   OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
> work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
> I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
> (at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
> under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.
>
>   I ran XP & TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
> been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
> expect this machine may be acceptable.
>
>   To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:
>
> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?
>
AFAIK, vmware-workstation is the not license-free, so you'll have to invest
some money in it. You might want to try vmware-player (if you want to go the
vmware way). It is free, but it comes with restrictions. The major
disadvantage is - you can't create your own images, you can only "play"
them.

>
> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
> fetch restrictions...)
>
 Many sites (like this one: http://www.filestube.com/v/vmware+windows+image)
offer you ready-to-go vmdk images. Google will help you find a lot of sites
like this one.

>
> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?
>
There are (at least) three alternatives: VirtualBox (
http://www.virtualbox.org , http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/VirtualBox ), kVM
( http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page ,
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/KVM ) and Qemu ( http://www.qemu.org/ ,
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/QEmu )
In my opinion, VirtualBox is a very good (and open source) alternative to
VMWare, and if all you need out of the virtualization software is to be able
to run TradeStation, I'd definitely go for this one.
kVM and Qemu can be a bit confusing for a beginner (in virtualization), and,
although they can offer better performance than vbox, I don't think they're
worth the hassle for your specific needs.

>
>   For now I'm working from this list of documents and the index in
> the upper right:
>
> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/VMware_Workstation
>
> Thanks!
>
> - Mark
>
>
Hope I helped

Marko Obrovac
http://www.linkedin.com/in/doorman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Marko Obrovac <marko.obrovac@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mark,
>
> 2010/1/26 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
>>
>> Hi,
>>   OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
>> work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
>> I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
>> (at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
>> under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.
>>
>>   I ran XP & TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
>> been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
>> expect this machine may be acceptable.
>>
>>   To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:
>>
>> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?
>
> AFAIK, vmware-workstation is the not license-free, so you'll have to invest
> some money in it. You might want to try vmware-player (if you want to go the
> vmware way). It is free, but it comes with restrictions. The major
> disadvantage is - you can't create your own images, you can only "play"
> them.

The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
like Free Speech...)

Being that my intention is to run TradeStation and hopefully make some
money I'm not if I qualify anymore.

>>
>> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
>> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
>> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
>> fetch restrictions...)
>
>  Many sites (like this one: http://www.filestube.com/v/vmware+windows+image)
> offer you ready-to-go vmdk images. Google will help you find a lot of sites
> like this one.
>>
>> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
>> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?
>
> There are (at least) three alternatives: VirtualBox (
> http://www.virtualbox.org , http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/VirtualBox ), kVM
> ( http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page ,
> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/KVM ) and Qemu ( http://www.qemu.org/
> , http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/QEmu )
> In my opinion, VirtualBox is a very good (and open source) alternative to
> VMWare, and if all you need out of the virtualization software is to be able
> to run TradeStation, I'd definitely go for this one.
> kVM and Qemu can be a bit confusing for a beginner (in virtualization), and,
> although they can offer better performance than vbox, I don't think they're
> worth the hassle for your specific needs.

I guess virtualbox-box is non-GPL? I have to accept Sun's PUEL. Not a
big deal to me I suppose. It's a pretty simple document and I'm a
pretty simple guy. Good fit.

Actually, VirtualBox is so straight forward that I'm installing WinXP
as I write this. The only tricks so far were to modprobe the kernel
driver and figure out that there's a bit of a delay from when my CD
spins up until it recognizes that the CD is really there.

...

Windows splash screen up

OK - it says 39 minutes until installation will be done but most
likely it will go much faster.

Thanks! If the performance is good this will be nice.

Back later...

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:11 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Windows splash screen up
>
> OK - it says 39 minutes until installation will be done but most
> likely it will go much faster.
>
> Thanks! If the performance is good this will be nice.
>
> Back later...
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>

XP is up and running in VirtualBox. took less than 1 hour since I
started emerging things to get Windows with networking running. It's
doing SP2/3 updates now.

Completely off topic but what's the trick to free my mouse and
keyboard from the Vbox prison they seem to be in? I had to come to
another computer to send this message!

Anyway, thanks for the pointer to VirtualBox. Now I can work on
getting it working well, but at least it's running.

Cheers
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Sebastian Beßler]

Am Mittwoch 27 Januar 2010 01:23:20 schrieb Mark Knecht:

> Completely off topic but what's the trick to free my mouse and
> keyboard from the Vbox prison they seem to be in? I had to come to
> another computer to send this message!

Pressing the Host-Key releases the Mouse. Right-STRG is the Host-Key unless 
configured else. 
But you should install the guest additions because with them the mouse will 
not be grabbed anymore. 

Greetings

Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:23:20 -0800
schrieb Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>:

> Completely off topic but what's the trick to free my mouse and
> keyboard from the Vbox prison they seem to be in? I had to come to
> another computer to send this message!

By default you have to press the right Ctrl button; the exact button you have
to press is displayed at the bottom right of the Virtualbox window. Doesn't
Virtualbox tell you what to press when you first click into a guest window
(unless you deactivate the popup)? After you install the guest additions you
won't have to worry about that anymore though, since moving the cursor past the
edge of windows' desktop boundaries releases it automatically.

> Cheers
> Mark

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
Lt. Frank Drebin: "It's true what they say: cops and women don't mix. Like
eating a spoonful of Drāno; sure, it'll clean you out, but it'll leave you
hollow inside."

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 1:55 AM, Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> wrote:
> Am Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:23:20 -0800
> schrieb Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>:
>
>> Completely off topic but what's the trick to free my mouse and
>> keyboard from the Vbox prison they seem to be in? I had to come to
>> another computer to send this message!
>
> By default you have to press the right Ctrl button; the exact button you have
> to press is displayed at the bottom right of the Virtualbox window. Doesn't
> Virtualbox tell you what to press when you first click into a guest window
> (unless you deactivate the popup)? After you install the guest additions you
> won't have to worry about that anymore though, since moving the cursor past the
> edge of windows' desktop boundaries releases it automatically.
>
>> Cheers
>> Mark
>
> HTH
> --
> Marc Joliet

It did tell me but I had dismissed it - not deactivated it - and at
the time was in a long SP3 update and couldn't restart it. I kept
reading it as the Ctrl + right mouse button and just didn't get it.

I managed to get out by downloading the user's manual on another
computer which had the instructions.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Beso]

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2010/1/27 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>

> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Marko Obrovac <marko.obrovac@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hello Mark,
> >
> > 2010/1/26 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>   OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
> >> work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
> >> I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
> >> (at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
> >> under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.
> >>
> >>   I ran XP & TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
> >> been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
> >> expect this machine may be acceptable.
> >>
> >>   To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:
> >>
> >> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?
> >
> > AFAIK, vmware-workstation is the not license-free, so you'll have to
> invest
> > some money in it. You might want to try vmware-player (if you want to go
> the
> > vmware way). It is free, but it comes with restrictions. The major
> > disadvantage is - you can't create your own images, you can only "play"
> > them.
>
> The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
> vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
> instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
> specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
> like Free Speech...)
>
> Being that my intention is to run TradeStation and hopefully make some
> money I'm not if I qualify anymore.
>
> >>
> >> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
> >> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
> >> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
> >> fetch restrictions...)
> >
> >  Many sites (like this one:
> http://www.filestube.com/v/vmware+windows+image)
> > offer you ready-to-go vmdk images. Google will help you find a lot of
> sites
> > like this one.
> >>
> >> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
> >> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?
> >
> > There are (at least) three alternatives: VirtualBox (
> > http://www.virtualbox.org , http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/VirtualBox ),
> kVM
> > ( http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page ,
> > http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/KVM ) and Qemu ( http://www.qemu.org/
> > , http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/QEmu )
> > In my opinion, VirtualBox is a very good (and open source) alternative to
> > VMWare, and if all you need out of the virtualization software is to be
> able
> > to run TradeStation, I'd definitely go for this one.
> > kVM and Qemu can be a bit confusing for a beginner (in virtualization),
> and,
> > although they can offer better performance than vbox, I don't think
> they're
> > worth the hassle for your specific needs.
>
> I guess virtualbox-box is non-GPL? I have to accept Sun's PUEL. Not a
> big deal to me I suppose. It's a pretty simple document and I'm a
> pretty simple guy. Good fit.
>
>
there's a virtualbox version which is licensed under gplv2, but it doesn't
have some guest additions that are included inside the bin package. anyway
the bin package is free for personal use. i've read that license, and SUN
does grant you the personal use of the software even for production
environments, as long ad it is you that install it and use it, and as long
as other users of the pc you're using are installing their own copy. if you
still want to be totally free you could just emerge the non bin version.
remember to also install the virtualbox-modules.

-- 
dott. ing. beso

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[The Doctor]

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Hash: SHA1

Mark Knecht wrote:

> The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
> vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
> instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
> specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
> like Free Speech...)

There is also a 60-day time limit on the un-paid-for version of VMware
Workstation, as I recall.

- --

The Doctor [412/724/301/703]

PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
WWW: http://drwho.virtadpt.net/

"I am that dude that's not safe for work." --Kyrin

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:25 AM, The Doctor <drwho@virtadpt.net> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>> The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
>> vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
>> instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
>> specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
>> like Free Speech...)
>
> There is also a 60-day time limit on the un-paid-for version of VMware
> Workstation, as I recall.
>
> - --
>
> The Doctor [412/724/301/703]

I got VirtualBox up and running with XP but nothing much more
yesterday as I ran into XP licensing issues again with M$ and sort of
backed off.

I tried vmware-workstation nearly a year ago and it worked but I
didn't have a real need for it so it languished on my system which
went up in smoke about 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I tried vmware-player
and found it played my Win XP/Kaspersky/SP2 images just fine. So far
all I've had to do was install SP3 and I seem to be good to go so I'll
use this until I run into a reason to change or have more time to work
with VirtualBox.

I haven't figured out what's up with vmware-player networking yet. I
can get to the web in a browser just fine, do updates through M$
Update, do GMail. It looks perfect. However WinSCP running in
vmware-player isn't yet finding other machines on my network. IIRC
there were different models of networking you could set up. I have to
go back and relearn that stuff but it's not critical to me until I
determine if the new machine is really fast enough to run TradeStation
and, very importantly, if the networking is stable enough and
transparent enough to allow me to connect to their network for real
futures trading. That will force me to dig in if it isn't OK right
now.

We'll see...Time will tell...Did you hear the about the guy who walked
into a bar...

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Beso]

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2010/1/27 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>

> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:25 AM, The Doctor <drwho@virtadpt.net> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Mark Knecht wrote:
> >
> >> The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
> >> vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
> >> instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
> >> specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
> >> like Free Speech...)
> >
> > There is also a 60-day time limit on the un-paid-for version of VMware
> > Workstation, as I recall.
> >
> > - --
> >
> > The Doctor [412/724/301/703]
>
> I got VirtualBox up and running with XP but nothing much more
> yesterday as I ran into XP licensing issues again with M$ and sort of
> backed off.
>
> I haven't figured out what's up with vmware-player networking yet. I
> can get to the web in a browser just fine, do updates through M$
> Update, do GMail. It looks perfect. However WinSCP running in
> vmware-player isn't yet finding other machines on my network. IIRC
> there were different models of networking you could set up. I have to
> go back and relearn that stuff but it's not critical to me until I
> determine if the new machine is really fast enough to run TradeStation
> and, very importantly, if the networking is stable enough and
> transparent enough to allow me to connect to their network for real
> futures trading. That will force me to dig in if it isn't OK right
> now.
>

are you sure that it isn't your routing tables that aren't ok? try
tracerouting the ip you're trying to access and see if you can reach it.
if you cannot you'd have to add the correct routing entries in windows
routing tables.

-- 
dott. ing. beso

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

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On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Beso <givemesugarr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2010/1/27 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:25 AM, The Doctor <drwho@virtadpt.net> wrote:
>> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> > Hash: SHA1
>> >
>> > Mark Knecht wrote:
>> >
>> >> The last time I looked at this (maybe a year ago?) I decided that the
>> >> vmware-workstation would let a home user run something like two
>> >> instances without charges. Not free in that I'm limited to something
>> >> specific but no cost. (Is that free beer? It certainly doesn't sound
>> >> like Free Speech...)
>> >
>> > There is also a 60-day time limit on the un-paid-for version of VMware
>> > Workstation, as I recall.
>> >
>> > - --
>> >
>> > The Doctor [412/724/301/703]
>>
>> I got VirtualBox up and running with XP but nothing much more
>> yesterday as I ran into XP licensing issues again with M$ and sort of
>> backed off.
>>
>> I haven't figured out what's up with vmware-player networking yet. I
>> can get to the web in a browser just fine, do updates through M$
>> Update, do GMail. It looks perfect. However WinSCP running in
>> vmware-player isn't yet finding other machines on my network. IIRC
>> there were different models of networking you could set up. I have to
>> go back and relearn that stuff but it's not critical to me until I
>> determine if the new machine is really fast enough to run TradeStation
>> and, very importantly, if the networking is stable enough and
>> transparent enough to allow me to connect to their network for real
>> futures trading. That will force me to dig in if it isn't OK right
>> now.
>
> are you sure that it isn't your routing tables that aren't ok? try
> tracerouting the ip you're trying to access and see if you can reach it.
> if you cannot you'd have to add the correct routing entries in windows
> routing tables.
> --
> dott. ing. beso
>
Actually I was pretty sure it _was_ routing. I just hadn't had time to
look into it at that point. At this point I have. It seems the copied
image decided to go with DHCP (or I had it that way and forgot) so I
was pointing at the wrong IP address. It all works fine now.

Ah, the power of Gentoo on multiprocessor systems. There is a standard
benchmark everyone runs on TradeStation just to gauge the relative
speeds of their systems. The fastest reported so far has been about 3
1/2 minutes running on a very expensive i7-9_something. (IIRC he paid
maybe $1K for the processor and MB, then $300 for a new copy of Win7
Professional.) This new machine of mine with the new Core i5-661 and
standard memory speeds (I have gaming memory but haven't speed up to
those gaming speeds yet) ran about 4 minutes 18 seconds using XP
native.

This morning, using Gentoo AMD64 and VMWare Player running a Win XP
image the same TradeStation benchmark ran 4 minutes 20 seconds.
Essentially identical. And with proof that VMWare limited itself to 1
processor I suspect I can run 4 copies in parallel and except for the
memory and disk access parts of it essentially cut the speed by a
factor of 4. (Oh yeah - I'll probably want better cooling...) Of
course I'll need to prove this but the future looks bright!

Not sure if the list allows attachments but I did a screen capture of
top showing processor usage as the optimization benchmark was running.
1 processor pegged, everything else idle.

Cheers,
Mark

[-- Attachment #2: TS Optimization running in VMWare.png --]
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Lie Ryan]

On 01/27/10 08:47, Marko Obrovac wrote:
> Hello Mark,
> 
> 2010/1/26 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
> 
<snip>
>>
>> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?
>>
<snip>
> You might want to try vmware-player (if you want to go the
> vmware way). It is free, but it comes with restrictions. The major
> disadvantage is - you can't create your own images, you can only "play"
> them.

Not exactly. VMWare Player's [.vmx] configuration file is a simple
plain-text file and you can pretty much create your own disk image for
any OS from blank disk image (downloadable). One of my first Linux
machine was Ubuntu on VMWare Player from blank disk image (though I did
copy the base config file from a pre-made, customizing the .vmx file is
near-trivial).

I believe there are also some 3rd party software for creating VMWare
configuration file, though I never used them.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Lie Ryan <lie.1296@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/27/10 08:47, Marko Obrovac wrote:
>> Hello Mark,
>>
>> 2010/1/26 Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
>>
> <snip>
>>>
>>> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?
>>>
> <snip>
>> You might want to try vmware-player (if you want to go the
>> vmware way). It is free, but it comes with restrictions. The major
>> disadvantage is - you can't create your own images, you can only "play"
>> them.
>
> Not exactly. VMWare Player's [.vmx] configuration file is a simple
> plain-text file and you can pretty much create your own disk image for
> any OS from blank disk image (downloadable). One of my first Linux
> machine was Ubuntu on VMWare Player from blank disk image (though I did
> copy the base config file from a pre-made, customizing the .vmx file is
> near-trivial).
>
> I believe there are also some 3rd party software for creating VMWare
> configuration file, though I never used them.
>
>
I still have two WinXP images I created a year ago sitting around when
I tried the workstation. I suppose I can probably use those somehow
with the Player?

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>   OK - with the new machine up and running well enough to do some
> work I really need to get some sort of virtualization going to see if
> I can get around the fact that XP cannot be installed on this machine.
> (at least not easily) I need to run TradeStation and I'd like to try
> under Linux but Wine is ABSOLUTELY not an option.
>
>   I ran XP & TS on my older system (5 year old 3GHz AMD64)  but it's
> been a long time since I tried it. The performance was just OK. I
> expect this machine may be acceptable.
>
>   To anyone familiar with this subject a few questions:
>
> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?

If you want to pay money, it works and is very easy to use.
vmware-server is free (but not open source?)

> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
> fetch restrictions...)

vmware-player lets you run an existing virtual machine but not create
one, IIRC. VMWare has a lot of "virtual appliances" on their website
which are pre-made virtual machine images for various purposes.

I don't think Windows is included. You'll probably have to install it
manually. However, Microsoft gives away free time-limited XP virtual
machine images (VirtualPC format; you'll have to convert it to the
format of your choice, vmware has some free tool to do this for
converting to their format), supposedly for testing for old Internet
Explorer versions but you can install anything you want in them. I
think they last for 6 months. You may be able to use some windows
key-changer software (magical jellybean?) to reactivate that image
with your own key. I don't know specifically which version of Windows
they give or which version you're licensed to use.

> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?

http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/TechComparison

It seems the most common choices I've seen mentioned are virtualbox,
xen, kvm, vmware, in no particular order.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Virtualization/WinXP

[The Doctor]

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Mark Knecht wrote:

> 1) If I go the VMWare route is it vmware-workstation that I want?

It depends.  Workstation gives you the advantage of having a native
application to act as a front-end to the guest OS.  Server (at least,
the version I installed from Portage a couple of days ago
(2.0.2.203138)) doesn't work with that app; the new release forces you
to use a web application to interact with it.  It's not bad thus far (in
my opinion) but if you're used to using something else as to interact
with it, it's kind of jarring.  Also, the new release of VMware Server
assumes that all .iso images and guest OSes go under /var/lib/vmware,
while Workstation (I was using 6.5.3.185404) could be configured to put
stuff wherever you wanted.  Again, not that big a deal.

What prompted me to switch back to Server from Workstation is that the
version of app-emulation/vmware-modules that Workstation wanted is was
v1.0.0.25, which had networking problems (i.e., the VMware pseudo-NICs
didn't work more often than they did) with kernels newer than... I want
to say v2.6.25 and later.  Installing Server pulled in v1.0.0.24-r1,
which has been all aces.

> 2) Are there any prebuilt XP images that would save me the hassle of
> installing Win XP and just allow me to validate with my existing keys?
> Is this the purpose of vmware-player? (which doesn't seem to have
> fetch restrictions...)

I don't know.  I was issued one at work when I worked with it.

> 3) In some ways the most important question is what are the Open
> Source alternatives and how easy are they to set up?

VirtualBox is pretty nice  but I kept running into problems with guest
OSes' traffic egressing unreliably  to the LAN.  This may not be of
concern to you but I found it irritating given what I was doing with it.
 I haven't used it in about two years, so this may have changed in the
interim.

- --

The Doctor [412/724/301/703]

PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
WWW: http://drwho.virtadpt.net/

Never fdisk after midnight.

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