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You must work for Microsoft TechNet; while your answer is technically correct, it is also useless for the person who asks.

Ah, an ad hominem as the very first thing. It's kind of hard to offer support (which I wasn't trying to do) without knowing which VM and I would suggest a forum dedicated to that VM would be a more appropriate place rather than /. especially as there are conflicting comments about 3D working/not working under OS X depending on the exact VM and OS X. Perhaps some combinations are simply a no-go.

Neither VMware nor VBox support 3D acceleration for remote or shared images.

3D Acceleration has been available in VBox since around version 2.1, they're now on 4.1.6. One does need to have the guest additions installed
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#guestadd-video

As to VMWare, one of the things that kept me on VMWare Workstation for so long as the fact that it did 3D accelerations whilst VBox did not. It seems that even Server offers 3D acceleration (I have not tried it myself) although server hardware is not usually known for its killer graphics card.
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/virtualization-3d-support-vmware.html

You are quite correct on remote/shared images. Whilst the server might be able to do the acceleration and the guest set-up to run the acceleration, it simply will not work/appear on the remote client. There may be some help in getting that to work, but I'm afraid I don't have the time to look into it just now
http://blogs.oracle.com/vizsun/entry/hardware_accelerated_remote_3d_windows

I have run Mint 12 and Fedora 16 (Gnome 3 Shell) and Arch (KDE) amongst others without issue (not as a remote, obviously). All with full transparencies, eye candy etc. One can even run 3D games in these virtualised environments without issue (as a quick test, "Extreme Tux Racer" at 60fps, Saurebraten [high settings] at 20fps in a Mint 12 guest).
XPsp3 (checked via dxdiag) had failures for DirectX 7 and 8, but the test for 9 worked perfectly.

The acceleration offered isn't as good as native hardware acceleration and one doesn't get all the latest features due to the nature of the virtualised hardware exposed to the guest.
Hardware: Dell Dimension 9200, 4GB with a NVidia GT240, Ubuntu 10.10 (proprietary NVidia drivers installed); not cutting edge by any means.

1. Download a VM like Virtalbox.
2. Download Puppy Linux .iso
3. Install Puppy Linux in Virtalbox. 4 gig dynamic drive with 128 megs of RAM will suffice.
4. Inside puppy download and install the pet package Hiawatha
5. Setup FTP inside your home directory (I think it's called setup file sharing)
6. Set your network in Puppy to a static IP and set Virtualbox to use a bridged adapter for the puppy install.
7. Use Notepad++, Filezilla in windows to FTP into your virtual box to update files.

That's close to a LAMP server. I don't think technically using Puppy/Hiawatha would be LAMP. But I believe Hiawatha serves the same function as Apache and I think would suit your purpose. if you're just interested in the PHP part you can also just install XAMPP.

The thing I like about the Virtualbox (or any VM) is you can wipe it out easily. You can move it to different computers. It's easy to play around with FTP and SSH settings.
There are tons of ways to do this without getting a host if you're just looking to learn. If you really want a host most have LAMP options. For many it is even the default. For tutorials I think W3 Schools is good starting point and has examples.

*All suggestions are debatable. When making these suggestions I considered using low resources and ease of use. Given more resources to give to the Virtual box you have tons and tons of choices.

Microsoft started offering their own Virtual PC software for free, but it's shit compared to features of VMware products.

that is such a terrible, terrible comparison.

take a look at virtual box,
https://www.virtualbox.org/

free, and it's about 95% of vmware.

Try this. You'll love it.

I seem to have problems with snapshots as shown in my forum thread: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43768 ... :(

They spun some of the bits (USB drivers, some other stuff) off into an extension pack, but 90% of Virtualbox is opensource and nevertheless maintained by Oracle.

Proper PXE booting is part of the 10% closed source extension. I tried every NIC in the free verison of 3.x when it was owned by Sun, only the closed source PXE boot implementation would work with our Windows SCCM servers.

I also have been using Virtualbox since then 1.xx version (now 4.xx) in many hardware environments, always using ubuntu as host, and many guest from OpenBSD to windows 8.

I never had the single problem with it, everything worked rock-stable and fast. Since the oracle take-over, I have to say it actually improved a lot, just take a look at the changelog, hundreds of bugs fixed in the last months.

I'm guessing you don't have the VirtualBox additions installed in your guests (I suppose you might not be able to if you're booting over PXE). You should see the user manual for adding custom VESA resolutions, which should allow you to add 1920x1200 (and any other resolution to your heart's consent): http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#idp13633936

Since 99% of desktop run either Windows and/or Mac OS X

Then I'd expect you all to know about a Windows and/or Mac OS X application.

I wonder if this has anything to do with this problem.

Because you can easily use and install php modules from Yum or synaptic and do things like cakewalk with ease. Xampp can't do anything besides basic things unless you want to config .ini files and deal with incompatiblities. Most php software still is unix based and will do things like look for $home etc.

Linux is what your server will run anyway and if you use virtualbox you can run it on your mac or Windows 7 system for free with CentOS/Fedora/Ubuntu. You can use VMplayer (free) too and download a VMware image of your favorite distro too if you hate virtualbox.

I use Postgresql in which the win32 version comes with apache and php for Windows in the addons. But for anything else not simple I fire up my VM and run Linux as it is very easy to use and setup. I like it more and run in in VM in Windows that way

In VirtualBox v4.0, Oracle released the core as an open-source projet and the proprietary extensions as a plug-in. This proprietary extension is free for home use but commercial users must by a licence. The extension is not 100% necessary but does provides some very useful features, such as being able to connect to the "console" of a headless VM. Cool right?

Well, not really. There is at the moment no way to actually buy such a licence from Oracle, so all the people using VirtualBox v4.0 with this extension in a business are technically out of compliance.

VirtualBox is cool, but they really need some leadership from Oracle.

The VirtualBox guest extensions were released under the Oracle PUEL. IANAL, but the PUEL itself doesn't seem to say what you think it says.

The actual PUEL seems to center around the following restriction (emphasis mine):

2 Grant of license. (1) Oracle grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce, install, execute, and use internally the Product a Host Computer for your Personal Use, Educational Use, or Evaluation. “Personal Use” requires that you use the Product on the same Host Computer where you installed it yourself and that no more than one client connect to that Host Computer at a time for the purpose of displaying Guest Computers remotely. “Educational use” is any use in an academic institution (schools, colleges and universities, by teachers and students). “Evaluation” means testing the Product for a reasonable period (that is, normally for a few weeks); after expiry of that term, you are no longer permitted to evaluate the Product.

In other words, it looks like the word "personal" is not a restriction on non-commercial versus commercial, but rather a limitation (of one) to the number of simultaneous users who may display guests remotely. The rest of the license doesn't seem to be changing this, so it seems to me that this is an accurate representation of their intentions. (On the side, it is one of the best-written comprehensible licenses I've seen in a while, so props Sun/Oracle). What they seem to want is for people to use this individually (commercially or non-commercially) and not try and use VirtualBox to set up an enterprise virtualization solution. This is consistent with the software itself, whose interfaces and features are very-much geared towards a single-user multiple-system scenario.

Now, historically, prior to Oracle's acquisition of Sun, VirtualBox's still released closed extensions; this was just accomplished by releasing two versions of VirtualBox side-by-side. One of them was a limited open-source bundle, while the other was a full bundle released by Sun under a similar PUEL. The main difference is that the previous model released two separate versions, while the current model releases a single open-source core version and a set of closed extensions that augment the open-source version's functionality to that of the previously-separate closed-source PUEL bundle. In other words, VirtualBox under Sun seems to be operating roughly equivalently to VirtualBox under Oracle.

VirtualBox is an excellent piece of virtualization software ... highly-recommended to those who are using VMWare Player to run/test multiple systems in a development context. I, personally, feel it beats VMWare's pants off in that specific scenario.

In VirtualBox v4.0, Oracle released the core as an open-source projet and the proprietary extensions as a plug-in. This proprietary extension is free for home use but commercial users must by a licence. The extension is not 100% necessary but does provides some very useful features, such as being able to connect to the "console" of a headless VM. Cool right?

Well, not really. There is at the moment no way to actually buy such a licence from Oracle, so all the people using VirtualBox v4.0 with this extension in a business are technically out of compliance.

VirtualBox is cool, but they really need some leadership from Oracle.

The VirtualBox guest extensions were released under the Oracle PUEL. IANAL, but the PUEL itself doesn't seem to say what you think it says.

The actual PUEL seems to center around the following restriction (emphasis mine):

2 Grant of license. (1) Oracle grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce, install, execute, and use internally the Product a Host Computer for your Personal Use, Educational Use, or Evaluation. “Personal Use” requires that you use the Product on the same Host Computer where you installed it yourself and that no more than one client connect to that Host Computer at a time for the purpose of displaying Guest Computers remotely. “Educational use” is any use in an academic institution (schools, colleges and universities, by teachers and students). “Evaluation” means testing the Product for a reasonable period (that is, normally for a few weeks); after expiry of that term, you are no longer permitted to evaluate the Product.

In other words, it looks like the word "personal" is not a restriction on non-commercial versus commercial, but rather a limitation (of one) to the number of simultaneous users who may display guests remotely. The rest of the license doesn't seem to be changing this, so it seems to me that this is an accurate representation of their intentions. (On the side, it is one of the best-written comprehensible licenses I've seen in a while, so props Sun/Oracle). What they seem to want is for people to use this individually (commercially or non-commercially) and not try and use VirtualBox to set up an enterprise virtualization solution. This is consistent with the software itself, whose interfaces and features are very-much geared towards a single-user multiple-system scenario.

Now, historically, prior to Oracle's acquisition of Sun, VirtualBox's still released closed extensions; this was just accomplished by releasing two versions of VirtualBox side-by-side. One of them was a limited open-source bundle, while the other was a full bundle released by Sun under a similar PUEL. The main difference is that the previous model released two separate versions, while the current model releases a single open-source core version and a set of closed extensions that augment the open-source version's functionality to that of the previously-separate closed-source PUEL bundle. In other words, VirtualBox under Sun seems to be operating roughly equivalently to VirtualBox under Oracle.

VirtualBox is an excellent piece of virtualization software ... highly-recommended to those who are using VMWare Player to run/test multiple systems in a development context. I, personally, feel it beats VMWare's pants off in that specific scenario.

I do like Ubuntu as a distro. I haven't tried Linux Mint (but I probably will soon). I've also used Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, RedHat Linux, and Debian Linux. Generally, the biggest difference between all of them is how the Package Manager (Add/Remove Programs or "Programs and Features" equivalent) works to install or remove programs from the system (the same holds true for building your own packages of existing programs).

As long as you have fairly modern hardware, VirtualBox or VMWare are good ways to go to try Linux before you attempt a dual boot. Dual boot is recommended in the sense that you will either be "forced" to learn it or forget about it all together. Using Linux in a VM allows you to have the Linux computer in one window, and still have a web browser in another to research how to actually "use" Linux and the many different ways it can be used. You could then even see what different "Window Managers" exist and what one you like best.

Window Managers are essentially the software that manage the presentation of XWindows as a GUI (Graphical User Interface). Mac OSX is Unix under-the-hood and uses a Window Manager as well. There are many different window managers out there. The 2 biggest Window Manager environments are KDE and Gnome. I personally like Fluxbox as a window manager because it is clean, light-weight and allows lots of apps to become full screen easily.

VMWare is very popular and a full featured virtual machine platform. Probably very well supported too. Personally I use VirtualBox because I find it to be the least CPU intensive of the virtual machine platforms I've tried. Also, it is FREE.

An alternative to running Linux in a Dual Boot or virtual machine environment is to install Linux as the only OS on a spare Pentium class computer. Many of these can be had for cheap AND depending on where you live, a quick dumpster dive could land you a decent system for this task.

I do like Ubuntu as a distro. I haven't tried Linux Mint (but I probably will soon). I've also used Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, RedHat Linux, and Debian Linux. Generally, the biggest difference between all of them is how the Package Manager (Add/Remove Programs or "Programs and Features" equivalent) works to install or remove programs from the system (the same holds true for building your own packages of existing programs).

As long as you have fairly modern hardware, VirtualBox or VMWare are good ways to go to try Linux before you attempt a dual boot. Dual boot is recommended in the sense that you will either be "forced" to learn it or forget about it all together. Using Linux in a VM allows you to have the Linux computer in one window, and still have a web browser in another to research how to actually "use" Linux and the many different ways it can be used. You could then even see what different "Window Managers" exist and what one you like best.

Window Managers are essentially the software that manage the presentation of XWindows as a GUI (Graphical User Interface). Mac OSX is Unix under-the-hood and uses a Window Manager as well. There are many different window managers out there. The 2 biggest Window Manager environments are KDE and Gnome. I personally like Fluxbox as a window manager because it is clean, light-weight and allows lots of apps to become full screen easily.

VMWare is very popular and a full featured virtual machine platform. Probably very well supported too. Personally I use VirtualBox because I find it to be the least CPU intensive of the virtual machine platforms I've tried. Also, it is FREE.

An alternative to running Linux in a Dual Boot or virtual machine environment is to install Linux as the only OS on a spare Pentium class computer. Many of these can be had for cheap AND depending on where you live, a quick dumpster dive could land you a decent system for this task.

I was surprised when I stumbled across Oracle VirtualBox. It's pretty dang nice, at least for the end-user instance. What's in it for them to support this project?

http://www.virtualbox.org/

He can create any test environment there for Windows or GNU/Linux, and then he will get more consistent testing results from a virtual machine which can be restored to a checkpoint easily than trying to test directly on his development laptop. VirtualBox is even free.

There are other choices as well like VMWare and Parallels.

Plus he can use BootCamp to set up a native install of software in another partition if he really must run directly against the hardware.

Oracle is trying to ENTER the x86 virtualization market with Xen in a product called Oracle VM. I've used it, and it's ugly. Besides the PHB marketing tagling of "you can run Oracle on the entire stack!", I've seen no technical reasons to use it over KVM or VMWare in the enterprise.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. http://www.virtualbox.org/

But why not use its own Virtualbox? I find it a lot more usable than Xen. Well, anything is easier to use than Xen.

VirtualBox wasn't mentioned in the article, but when the acquisition was announced, I was really worried about that project. However, the release of VirtualBox 4.0 seems to show that they're still hard at work - not just fixing bugs, but developing new ideas.

I can only hope other Sun projects are doing as well as VirtualBox.

Get over your oxymoronic* self

* - "enterprise" Windows

For varying definitions of the word "good", VirtualBox does.

It is the fault of others for exploiting it? ...
How about they fix their exploits instead of pointing fingers.

IMO, this is not an "exploit". Dropping files into the plugins directory is easy by design.

Unwanted application side-effects are the fault of our current computing model whereby any application can see and touch any other application's junk.

To stop this sort of thing we need to change our application model to a sandboxed one, such as: *nix chroot, Android, iOS, etc. I really like Android's "Intents" (Applications can have a public API for talking to other applications).

The real issue at hand is that applications have access to data that we may not want them to access. Currently there is no option to tell our desktop OSs that we want all applications sandboxed, and any cross sandbox activity must be approved by the user.

With a sandboxed approach it will still be simple for the OS, users or developers to drop files into an application's plugin directory.

I can't trust that all applications will strictly follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, and stay out of places they don't belong. Until then I'll keep using the chroot command and/or Virtualbox to create my own sandboxes.

Also, 1600x900 is "good enough" for a lot of work, for most people. I expect them to go to full 1920x1200 (I *hate* 1920x1080 for a screen) over the next 2 years, just as I expect +1tb drives, 8 gigs of ram, and quad cores to become the new "price buster."

Remember, the machines you berate today as "crappy" didn't even exist 5 years ago. They're really "good enough" for most work. My current laptop is a linux box, and it works fine as a web server. It can saturate a 100mbps connection. And yet, it's going to be considered VERY underpowered in another couple of years. That 4 gigs of ram and twin 320gig hds that was so hot 4 years ago is going to be less than "bargain basement".

As for VMs, why? I have the hardware to run multiple computers - why trash it prematurely? Why have all my eggs in one basket? Running multiple computers means that part of the workflow is copying stuff to other machines - so backing up is just part of the normal course of things (we all know how people never back up properly).

Besides, you might want to read the terms of Oracle's VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License, one client connection, blah blah blah. The closed-source version supports usb.

VirtualBox=free.

Have you read Oracle's licensing FAQ?

2 Grant of license. (1) Oracle grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce, install, execute, and use internally the Product a Host Computer for your Personal Use, Educational Use, or Evaluation. “Personal Use” requires that you use the Product on the same Host Computer where you installed it yourself and that no more than one client connect to that Host Computer at a time for the purpose of displaying Guest Computers remotely. “Educational use” is any use in an academic institution (schools, colleges and universities, by teachers and students). “Evaluation” means testing the Product for a reasonable period (that is, normally for a few weeks); after expiry of that term, you are no longer permitted to evaluate the Product.

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

You calibrate the monitor on the host, and use the resulting ICC profile with each application both on the host and guest.

This is discussed here: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18188

I have used VirtualBox quite a bit and I find it completely satisfactory. I have run both Win XP on Ubuntu hosts and Ubunutu on Win XP hosts and it has always worked very well. http://www.virtualbox.org/ I think it would do everything you want.

I would be excited if there was a way to run 10.7 on my current specs on my machine instead of having to drop 2000-3000 on an apple. Yes, I understand why it is done that way normally. You can see this as a troll post, but I am being honest, not trolling. I would be more than happy to switch to OSX if they worked out compatibility so that I can do what I do with *nix or windows and just install that on my main pc. 2000-3000 would get me an awesome upgrade on my current system that would blow a mac out of the water (unless I put OSX on there, than that would be cool). When it comes to new versions of OSX, that is the #1 main reason why I am never interested in those releases, but always interested in new Ubuntu or Windows versions that come out

The MacMini ($700+) or iMac ($1200+) do not cost $2000-3000. As for the rest of your post, you realize you can run OS X on your current PC via virtualization right? VirtualBox is one such software that allows you to do this.

What is unfair, of course, is that it is allowed to run Windows on a Mac, while it is not allowed to run OSX on a PC. Time for the FTC to look into this, I would suggest.

First of all, you can run OS X on a number of different platforms via virtualization. VirtualBox is just one software. Second of all Apple has the right to dictate what hardware runs with their software. If you think that Apple has done something wrong, then you need to inform the FTC about

virtually all Unix vendors:

• IBM (AIX works only on IBM)
• HP (HP-UX works only on HP)
• SCO-Unix only works on SCO

some mobile device makers:

• Palm (WebOS only works on Palm)
• Nokia (Symbian only works on Nokia)
• RIM (Blackberry OS only works on Blackberry)

in fact many, many hardware/software makers have this arrangement. So unless all these companies are violating rules for decades, there probably isn't anything for you to report.

Testing for slower systems & lower CPU has become a big problem w/ us right now, especially since access to older "obsolete" machines is very very difficult now.

How do you guys do this? I mean with the only off the shelf PCs available running over 1GHz these days, how do you test for a 200-500MHz platform these days? Personally, I used nested VMs running a la Russian Dolls or matrix within a matrix within a matrix for you geeks who don't know what a VMs are. I was running Puppy Linux & DamnSmallLinux inside Ubuntu inside WinXP

Virtualbox is very idiot friendly compared to VMWare and rockses sockses :)

I was thinking more along the lines of most students simply trying Linux.
Most probably won't have even thought about using it until they already have a laptop.
Those compatibility lists are more useful to those building up PCs from pieces.

It's little trouble or cost to just boot from a 32 or 64 bit Live CD and actually try Firefox with the wireless etc. Bringing one to the store when looking at machines is a good idea too. If sales staff are uncooperative, walk out. That'll help get some to change their tune.

Of course people can still browse the Ubuntu supported hardware lists or forums before buying. But there's no need to make it seem like some intimidating process. Yes, a few machines may have issues, some have Windows driver issues too (typically in 64 bit).

People that do have compatibility problems can likely still use Linux within the free Virtual Box virtual machine. Using the net only from Linux makes it much less likely that Windows will soil itself...

Between not having malware headaches and having free Open Office and other software preinstalled, Ubuntu is a great Windows alternative for students. Try it, it's free!
Nobody likes losing an important paper or project to malware.

Of course Macs are the simplest choice, but if one already has a PC, or gets one because of cost, they can have still have similar security and stability by using Linux.
Of course many that already are familiar with Linux find it worthy of premium hardware too.
Some find Linux useful on Macs too. Ubuntu in Virtual Box works great.

The two main bullet points for windows:

* You are already using WINDOWS programs (e.g. Microsoft Office, ITunes etc) and want to continue using them
* You are familiar with WINDOWS and do not want to learn new programs for email, word processing etc

Wine, anyone? Warning: Wine may not run bloatware crap like iTunes.
If you really can't let go of your bloatware, I recommend VirtualBox.

You could write a custom program that would scrape the the data from a website you setup to allow that program to run stand alone or you figure out what the data format is and write a program to convert that.

If you want to recreate the data from scratch then you'd need to set up a website your group would access and enter data. That would be crowd sourcing but you'd probably want something specific to your needs but using easily maintainable code.

As others have stated you could use virtualization. Inside the virtual machine you may even be able to run a LAMP stack and run the DOS program with dosbox running as as an unprivileged user. http://www.dosbox.com/ http://www.virtualbox.org/ http://www.vmware.com/.

I would only consider the virtual solution a stop gap until you could get the database translated to something maintainable or recreate the data.

I appreciate they probably had some QA to do in order to release this puppy and it took a while, but I loaded Evince, un-installed flash and called it a day. If you can't see it on youtube using their HTML 5 beta then that's a real good time to boot up Linux even if it's just in Xen or Oracle/Sun Virtualbox running on Windows. It works just fine for web browsing and less zero day exploits.

...does it run anything besides linux?

Is there something people want to run besides Linux?

And is anyone unable to run Linux?

No, seriously. Install VirtualBox on your Windows system or whatever, throw Xubuntu on a virtual machine, do whatever you want. The software doesn't cost a dime, you can do it with the hardware you have, and it's not even that difficult for a person of moderate geekiness. Okay, so it takes a lot of hard drive space, but gone are the days when you need to go drop a few hundred dollars on another computer or futz around with dual-booting and accidentally trash your MBR if you want a Linux system in addition to your current setup.

Finding old PCs that stay alive that long with a real UART etc. gets harder and harder, but here's to hoping that virtualization saves the day.

How is virtualization going to be much help when the issue is specific hardware requirements?

Because in a VM, the serial ports always appear to have the same UART "hardware", regardless of what it ultimately connects to on the host. Software running in the VM will always work so long as the virtual serial port and all of its functionality are properly mapped to a host device.

From http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#id2519998: "If a virtual serial port is enabled, the guest operating system sees it a standard 16450-type serial port. Both receiving and transmitting data is supported. How this virtual serial port is then connected to the host is configurable, and details depend on your host operating system."

Regards,

dj

You can dislike Windows all you like, but Windows 7 is actually pretty good.

I plan to install Ubuntu on my Mac, but unless Microsoft stops requiring Activation and all the spyware I will not install Windows on any computer I own if I don't have to. Activation, Windows Genuine Advantage or WGA, phoning home, and other spyware are some of the reasons why I switched from MS Windows.

What disappointed me about the VirtualBox article is that it doesn't say how to install OS X in a VM. I plan to set up my Mac to dualboot and I want to install VirtualBox or another VM in both Snow Leopard and Ubuntu so I can run one while booted into the other OS. A setup like that would be quicker and better when either the second OS is only needed for a short period, intermittently, or both are needed. Other Guests has some threads about installing OSX as a guest, one provided the How to Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox link however that's for VirtualBox on Windows.

You should give it a try some time, maybe run it in your virtualbox.

I'd try NT4 but the version I have is for DEC Alphas.

Falcon

Look at Virtualbox: http://www.virtualbox.org/ and there are portable (current) versions out there. On there, you can install Ubuntu, Fedora, what-have-you.

Looking it up turns up old and out-of-date results. Since version 2.2, VT-x and AMD-V are enabled by default and optimisations have been made to Virtualbox. The reason for the switch is outlined in the Virtualbox user manual:

The reason for changing the default with version 2.2 is that the hardware has significantly improved with the latest Intel and AMD processors, and VirtualBox has also fine-tuned its hardware virtualization support to a degree that it is now faster than software virtualization in many situations.

Exactly right. Be very careful with Intel's messy web site and confusing information. A higher model number may eliminate a feature.

Do you want hardware virtualization? Yes. You may want to install a program to test it, without taking a chance of causing trouble for your main OS installation. Sun VirtualBox is free for personal use.

My experience with Intel is that everything but processor and chipset design is amazingly poorly managed.

VirtualBox also fully supports the VHD format used by Microsoft.

It's possible. Create a hardware profile in the vista partition. In that profile change the hard disk controllers to generic ones. Now you can boot your vista partition without any bluescreens. For how to boot it in VB read section 9 of the VBox manual. http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#rawdisk

I use Windows 7 on my work desktop. I have dual monitors. I use UltraMon and get basically the setup requester is looking for: separate desktops that I can drag (or quickly hit the "move to other monitor" button) between screens.

I also use nomachine which tunnels compressed X sessions over SSH to remotely manage Linux servers in far away places and VirtualBox to run local Linux VMs.

It's not that hard to set up.

Certainly, heard of VirtualBox? http://www.virtualbox.org/

VirtualBox supports EFI now in 3.1.0 so you might want to try again.

I just wanted to say that I have some experience with Virtualbox 3.1 and I disagree with the "ease-of-use" assessment of 7/10. I've played around with VMWare 7, Virtualbox, and VirtualPC, and Virtualbox is about as easy as a virtualization program can get. It has a simple GUI interface to setup your VM, provides sane settings by default, and allows lots of optimizations (like increasing # of cores used and 3D accel) easily.

I'm currently running Ubuntu 9.10 x86 in Windows 7 Professional x64, sharing 4 CPUs and allocating 512 MB of RAM to the VM. The VM runs very well and starts up incredibly fast. I'm very happy with it. It was also dead easy to install. Virtualbox also has a huge array of support for OS's - pretty much every Linux flavor, all Windows verisons from DOS/Win 3.x to Win 7/2008 R2, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BeOS, Haiku etc. See http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes for a full list.

In addition, it has VT-x and AMD-V support, but it isn't required. But, the best part is that it is open source (there is a closed version with a few more features) and FREE.

I didn't find Vmware as easy to use (rated 9/10). It was fine, just not easier than Virtualbox.

No, what I'm saying is, when you create the machine, you assign properties to it. If you don't want that machine to access anything at all, just don't give it any shared resources, don't give it a network interface. You will have a standalone testbed, for whatever purpose you need it.

If you wish that machine to have access to the internet, and nothing in the LAN, you can give it exactly that. If you wish to give it unrestricted access to your LAN, but not the internet, that's fine as well. In my case, I run my VM's on my gateway machine anyway, so I just give it access to my physical eth0, connected to the internet, or to eth1, connected to the LAN. There's an option to create a virtual network among your virtual machines, and you can pick and choose which machines has access to that network.

As a seperate issue, are shared resources on the host's hard drive. I can share any folders I choose, or none at all.

You mention "default" settings, and there really isn't a "default". Each and every machine has to be set up uniquely, by way of a wizard, and you have to consciously choose each parameter along the way. Choosing the wrong parameters will likely give you a non-working machine, if the wizard even finishes creating the machine.

Hmmm. Maybe that last paragraph isn't quite what I mean - - - by default, there is no shared resources, no network interface, no access to the internet OR the LAN, or even any virtual network. You must specify each parameter before it can ever exist.

If you're interested, why not download and install one of the VM softwares? It's easily uninstalled and layed aside if you decide you're not very interested. ;^)

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

Good project for a rainy afternoon, or a Friday when you're trying to dodge responsibility on the job. I think that any tech savvy person can get it installed and running in that much time. Once it is up and running, you will need the time necessary for any normal installation of your chosen operating system before the VM is of any use.

Have fun!!

If you are worried about viruses on your machine, only let Virtual Machine snapshots connect to a network

Buy a USB-based wireless device (they're only $20 or so). Disable the wireless device on your Notebook's OS. Before you leave, build a Virtual Machine running an OS of your choice (Linux works nicely). Install the OS from scratch, boot it, update it, and then open up a browser instance. Configure it so that the USB wireless device is forwarded directly to the VM, and install its drivers in the VM. Snapshot the Virtual Machine's state. When you're travelling, turn off your Notebook's wireless signal the entire time. If you want to use the Internet, plug in the USB wireless device, start your VM, and use the Internet through it. When you're done, shut down the VM and revert its state to the saved snapshot state that you made before you started your trip. This should help ensure that any viruses you are hit with only survive the duration of that single VM session.

This would be excellent advice, but unfortunately, he's using a netbook. This normally means an Intel Atom processor, which is sadly devoid of any hardware visualization support whatsoever, therefore stopping the otherwise excellent virtualbox from working. Some very good points otherwise though.

• Where will my sensitive data be stored?

  Ideally, you want this to be a remote machine, either cloud or at home, with your Notebook acting as a gateway.

• What am I exposing to attackers?

  Be aware of potential vectors of attack (mostly wireless / network based, but don't forget physical access) and have a defense against them.

• How am I protecting my data?

  Ideally, everything (and, more practically, everything sensitive) will pass through some pipe that uses the strongest available encryption.

Here is a general set of guidelines that I use:

1. Are you sure you can't have a computer at home? A cheap decade-old server with a constant internet connection? How about trusted family or friends?

   As others here have mentioned, having pre-exchanged SSH keys and doing all of your sensitive browsing / business over an SSH-tunneled Proxy to a machine back home will do wonders to help with any inherent wi-fi (or untrustworthy ISP) issues.

2. Protect In Advance

   Get your system hardened before you start your journey. Make sure you're running the latest operating system versions with the latest security patches. Make sure you've configured your firewall and updated your antivirus software. Pick a secure software suite to use for your important actions. For any OS, shut down daemons and services that you're not going to need, as each is a potential point of attack.

3. If you are worried about viruses on your machine, only let Virtual Machine snapshots connect to a network

   Buy a USB-based wireless device (they're only $20 or so). Disable the wireless device on your Notebook's OS. Before you leave, build a Virtual Machine running an OS of your choice (Linux works nicely). Install the OS from scratch, boot it, update it, and then open up a browser instance. Configure it so that the USB wireless device is forwarded directly to the VM, and install its drivers in the VM. Snapshot the Virtual Machine's state. When you're travelling, turn off your Notebook's wireless signal the entire time. If you want to use the Internet, plug in the USB wireless device, start your VM, and use the Internet through it. When you're done, shut down the VM and revert its state to the saved snapshot state that you made before you started your trip. This should help ensure that any viruses you are hit with only survive the duration of that single VM session.

4. Encrypt your Hard Drive

   The options vary based on your OS. Any standard encryption scheme will do - complete drive encryption, partition encryption, filesystem-based encryption, etc. The real goal here is to make sure that neither your private files nor your runtime-generated files (Internet history, cookies, etc.) are accessible.

5. Store your Keys Externally

   Buy some cheap USB stick to store your SSH and/or Hard Drive encryption keys separately, and carry it with you at all times. If you're truly paranoid, you can even encrypt its filesystem with a password-based key for extra protection.

6. Don't Suspend / Hibernate your Machine

   Fully power down your Notebook when you're not using it. If you Suspend / Hibernate, not only will memory-resident viruses etc. still be running when you resume, but decrypted information is accessible in-memory, should it be seized in this state.

7. Don't Do Anything Stupid / Illegal

   There are a lot of threats you can face in another country, but it's wisest to stay away from the government-level threats. Don't give them a reason to seize your laptop and you'll have mitigated many truly serious issues.

An alternative is to setup Windows in a VirtualBox VM that has 3D acceleration enabled, install WineD3D in it, and then install and run your game.

The results vary depending on the game and on your system, but it's worth a try. Some games definitely work better this way than through Wine, and you don't have to reboot.