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Windows-On-Linux Emulator Shootout

Posted by timothy on from the fooling-some-of-the-programs-some-of-the-time dept.

securitas writes: "ZDNet has posted a comparative review of 5 Windows-on-Linux emulators from VMware (2), NeTraverse, WinToNet and Wine." The results encountered varied quite a bit -- none of the products are perfect, but it looks like they hit a particularly disappointing time with Wine.

4 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Moral of this story: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you have the funds, buy two computers and a switchbox. If you don't have the funds, configure your machine to dual boot.

    Really, what's the point of running the emulation if you lose speed and capabilities?

    1. Re:Moral of this story: by Adnans · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Really, what's the point of running the emulation if you lose speed and capabilities?

      The point is that you get to run another OS while still having access to your regular OS. I can keep my development enviroment and monitoring tools up and running in Linux, while booting Win2000 in VMware and browse that one webpage that requires a plugin that's not available in Linux (yet). And if you fullscreen Vmware you will NOT notice that you're running inside Vmware since it's feels as fast as the real thing (granted: 1.33GHZ + 512MB DDR :). Oh, and if it ever crashes you just double click that vmware icon and Win2000 is up an running again in 20 seconds :-)

      If you need to ask why, it's probably not for you anyway....

      -adnans

      --
      "In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
  2. Enterprise Level by XPulga · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the article: VMware GSX Server is an enterprise-level product and is priced accordingly.The electronic distribution(...)costs $2,499

    Wrong. Apache is an enterprise-level product that is priced accordingly.

    VMware GSX Server is an absolute must for any company looking to maintain multiple centralized development environments.

    Wrong again. Removing MS Windows from all workstations is an absolute must for any company looking to maintain a decent development environment. Note change in wording: if the environment is centralized and multiple, you only have to maitain the "center" (server), and leaf node configuration is straightforward, right ?

  3. The many uses for VMs by alienmole · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I used to use a four-way switch and have up to four computers connected. I threw that all out once I got VMWare.

    Using VMWare, I can keep a stable base environment and develop and test code on multiple platforms: various Linux distros, plus multiple Windows flavors in my case.

    In addition to that, I can install stuff that I'm evaluating in a virtual OS - including in a virtual Linux running on top of Linux - and if it causes any problems, I haven't affected my base environment.

    With VMWare, the state of a virtual machine can be suspend in seconds, and you can shut down the physical machine and come back to exactly where you left off, right down to the state of the Caps Lock key and the mouse cursor. In the middle of some complex development and want to take a break to play a game? Just suspend the VM you're working in, play your game, and resume the VM you want.

    I can save multiple configurations of each OS, and keep copies of old configurations to go back to if I need to. It's like having a whole swath of preinstalled partitions, except you don't have to reboot your machine to switch between them, and you can run more than one at the same time.

    The only caveat to all of the above is that it needs a lot of memory and disk space to work well - figure at least 64MB per running VM, ideally more; and at least 1-2GB per VM disk image. Good CPU performance doesn't hurt, either. The upside is that these days, this is all pretty cheap. I currently run with 512MB RAM and 2x30GB disks, on a dual CPU box, and the only performance issue I'm ever aware of is a bit of mouse lag.