[ale] VM ?

[Jim]

Paul Cartwright wrote:
> I am not at all familiar with VMware or virtualization, or whatever you call 
> running Windows under linux. My wife wants to be able to run windows under 
> SUSE without rebooting. Basically to run Quicken & Quickbooks.
> What are a few GOOD options? Is it VMware, or Zen, or.. a good doc tutorial, 
> or installation guide would be handy:)
>
>   
VMware will let you run Windows as a guest under Linux, however it 
virtualizes all the hardware so if you like to be able to plug stuff 
into the box, like dongles, cameras, etc. and use them under Windows, 
forget it. 

To run Windows under VMware you will either need to boot an install disk 
and install a new copy of Windows into VMware or buy a special program 
that will create a VMware image from an existing windows partition.  
Both of those bring up issues with licenses.

Xen will also let you boot a windows guest but in that case you have to 
boot an install disk AND it will only work if you have the newer 
hardware that supports hardware virtualization.  Intel Virtual 
Technology or the AMD equivalent, I forget the name.  

Qemu will also work but it's pretty slow compared to the other options.

Jim.