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Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Removes Linux Support
Psykechan writes "MSFN has got themselves a beta of the new MS Virtual PC 2004 which should be out at the end of this year. Most notable in their 'fixes' is the removal of Linux, BSD, Netware, and Solaris from the supported OS list. They may still work, they just aren't supported. We all thought that this would happen after MS bought Connectix but this just makes it official."
It nice for web developers. We really need to double-check our work on MSIE Win. VPC is portable and it allows onee to cut back on unnecessary hardware. I don't need a damn PC in my house. ;)
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
The only way to test on multiple versions of IE is with multiple Windows installations. You need a seperate install to test IE4, IE5, IE5.5 and IE6. Gotta love OS integration.
Are the guys at MS indirectly saying that Windows is not stable? Seems they could be finally saying it!
Also, if Virtual PC supports Mac OSX, couldn't it also support some of the BSDs since OSX has at least some BSD components underneath?
Yeah, that's the impression I got as well. VPC lets them say Hey you can migrate your old NT 4 stuff onto WS03 + NT4 on VPC. And if the Longhorn wave breaks backward compatibility I can see a stripped down VPC being built into the OS kind of like Classic in OSX.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Bochs isn't THAT hard to use. The wx based GUI is actually pretty good. I managed to go from knowing nothing about it to installing a copy of Redhat under it in about 4 hours. Seems to me the only weakness is the speed and the level of documentation available.
I use Virtual PC 5 on Windows at work to build & test Dephi & Java software. We get an enormous amount of control over the build and test enviroments by configuring the virtual machines exactly as we want them and enabling Undo Drives; the configuration can not change so we're 100% sure that the same setup is always used. This is much better than our current setup where I have to strugle to maintain four machines, especially the Delphi machines.
We went for Virtual PC because it was cheaper than VMWare (By quite some margin, I might add).
However we've already been shafted by the Connectix - Microsoft handover; we bought VPC 5.0, and when we wanted to upgrade to 5.2 they're no longer available. All we can get is a 5.2 trial, or the 5.0 we already have. The Virtual PC page at Microsoft also used to say VPC 2004 would be released in November; now it says "End of 2003". Bah!
MS removes features in beta, release it and gauge reaction. If highly negative, say "That was only a beta" and add the support back. If no reaction, then go ahead with plan.
The prophet has spoken.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
xen
Bochs will never replace VPC as long as Bochs is written in "pure" platform neutral code. VPC works as well as it does because of platform-specific optimizations done all over the place, both in C code and in assembly. This can break compatibility(such as with the new G5), but it's the only way to get enough speed to be useful, otherwise it's going to be like trying to use MAME to run Windows(MAME of course is also pure, but it can get away with this because the environment it emulatates runs at a fraction of the speed of the host).
I've been boycotting Microsoft for some time due to their dishonest, FRAUDULENT and unseemly activities.
But this pisses me off. Not that I use VPC much, but I do have a licensed copy.
No more.
I am now going to Pirate VPC and do my best to make sure pirated copies of VPC show up on as many forums and distribution points as I can find.
I've had it with Microsoft extorting money from schools for Windows licenses for every Mac they have. I've had it with Microsoft spreading lies about its competitors. I've had it with the Justice department going after MS for stupid anti-trust when straight Fraud and Theft charges are just as appropriate. And I've had it with the low moral, arrogant, incompetant Microsoft employees that are responsible for the Seattle half of the dotcom bust with their poorly run (and no longer running) companies.
I'm a Mac user, and I just became a Microsoft enemy. I believed that this was a free market and Micrisoft was allowed to compete, and anyone who bougth their stuff was just a fool. But this is it. This isn't a criminal activity-- they can make their software fail to run Linux and suck a little more... but buying the only x86 Emulator on the market and then hobbling it just pisses me off. ITs not enough that they have %90 market share-- no, they have to piss all over us.
Well. That's it. This means war.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Uh, that's why thee's a Plex86. Plex86 shares some code with bochs for the emulation of secure features of the processor and of extenal hadware, but executes ring code natively in ring 3 on the processor, just as VmWare.
Anyway, I can't see why anybody would care about this VirtualPC M$ junk, when VmWare is out there and compatible with everything except OS/2 (I've checked, and it doesn't work, and OS/2 does not work unde Plex86 either, and there, I got some more debugging info, OS/2 uses a bit in CR2 that none of these vitualizers have caed to virtualize...(But ATM, I can't remember which bit...))
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
That might be true, but the major uses of VirtualPC (for PCs) that I've heard about are:
+ MS-DOS for old games. (Connectix even marketed this)
+ OS/2 for legacy applications.
I think most Linux users of virtualization prefer Linux as the host OS and Windows as guest with VMWare, since they are usually migrating from Windows -> Linux and not the other way around.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The developer of MacOnLinux is supposedly looking at hacking it to run in OS X, so you can run OS 9 and OS X inside MacOS X. There is some preliminary support in its codebase for running a Linux kernel inside the virtual machine, and with appropriate changes to a kernel, it could use a virtual drive, and run a full Linux install, inside the virtual machine. Unfortunately, you can't use an unmodified kernel. You'd have to have support for the MOL block device interface - it doesn't try to pretend it has an IDE interface. MacOS and OS X load drivers at boot (OS 9 loads them out of OF ROMs) to support it, so it's pretty much transparent there, but it might be slightly more involved with Linux.
If you know what you're doing, he would probably appreciate the help. If not, don't overwhelm Samuel with "ooh, I heard you're gonna do this! whenwhenwhenIWANTITNOWGIMMEGIMME!" This is open source, and he's contributing to the community, so be nice to him, he's doing you a favor by trying at all.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
If it was integrated in, there's some interesting security stuff they could do -- you could 'sandbox' Win32 apps without breaking the API. That would minimize embarssing mail worms, spyware and so on. Sorta like 'jails' in the Unix world.
I think they also need an x86 emulator for Itanium systems, but I'm not sure if they are going to use Virtual PC or something else.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
VMware is a horrible hack to get around a few problems in the IA-32 architecture that make clean virtualization (like IBM's mainframew VM) impossible. Does the Opteron make things any better? Can you run a 32-bit OS under a 64-bit OS on the Opteron?
And this is almost on topic, but I got a chuckle at the time, so I figured I'd pass it on.
One day, in a fit of boredom, I decided to install the PC version of Connectix Virtual GameStation INSIDE a Virtual PC session on my Mac. Nevermind the fact that I had the Mac version of VGS installed, I was just curious to see what happened when I installed an emulator inside an emulator.
The installer launched and I laughed and was impressed at the same time. A dialog box popped up and more or less asked me if I was serious in a very humorous way. As Connectix had written both products, they took the time to write a line into the Windows VGS installer that, should it detect that it is being installed inside a Virtual PC to tell the operator to basically put down their crackpipe.
Now, with Microsoft making both the emulator and the "supported" operating systems within, I doubt we'll see any of this sense of humor (or logic checking).
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Really? That's interesting. I've got a server running just outside this room that's never had a hardware faliure and it's running a Celeron 366 with 4 hard drives ranging from around 4 to 1 years old.
The computer I'm currently running has had a single hard drive failure. That's the only hardware failure in its 7-year life that's failed through no fault of my own. Sure, it's been upgraded, but that's only to get better performance. After all, the floppy drive's still the original floppy drive I've had since 1996.
So stop spreading your bullshit lies just to try and make a Mac look better than it is.
I configured my DLink DWL 900AP (wireless accesspoint) using Virtual PC. Plugged the USB adapter into my Mac, started VPC and installed software. All done.
And of course it's a bit slower than VMWare, it has to emulate the CPU, not just work as an API.
I dont require people to like Apple, but i find it really amusing when people make things up just to whine...
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
He does have a point. I end up going 4-5 years between PC upgrades, and I can tell. I'm behind on just about everything, and I can really tell. The PC hardware market evolves so quickly that you end up spending more money to keep that high-end PC high-end than the initial cost. Sound cards, floppy drives, etc, really don't change much, if at all. But processors, memory, motherboards, and if you want a powerful 3d card, that changes all the time, too.
While Apple doesn't make their cutting-edge "keep up" in PC terms by changing hardware specs often, most people happily hold on to their Macs for much longer lengths of time, and when it comes time to upgrade, they make a large plunge. In the PC world, it seems you continually pay money in incremental upgrades until you decide it's time to shell out a large chunk of change...and then you have to keep the incrementals going again.
It's not that cut and dried, but Macs tend to cost a lot up front, but retain their value over time. PC's are cheaper at first, but lose value faster than a new car.
I've NEVER had a power supply fail on me. In fact, I've only ever had two components fail. Both were el-cheapo $10 realtek NICs that I got for free.
So, $20 worth of hardware failures in...9 years. Boy, that REALLY sucks!
You're living in so much denial. Why don't you wake up and look at reality? If you prefer using Macs, then fine, use a Mac! I don't care! But don't go tossing around lies in order to justify your decision for more than it's worth.
And yes, someone should write the judge.
IAAL.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
If it get's to the point that VMware knows it's dead in the market, maybe people could buy out the software and turn it into open source like they did with Blender.
I wonder how much support for this would exist within the OSS community?
Shh.
I have already puchased VPC 5.2 for win before MS bought them. I use a different guest (or a differencing drive at least) for each of the web browsers so I can test how my web sites look in different browsers (including browsers on Linux). That was the purpose I bought it. It's cheaper than buying a new PC and more convenient than swapping hard disks.
Now, if they don't officially support Linux anymore, I take my chances and would personally rather not take chances in using it in that manner anyway.
What this means for me is a) buy a new PC, b) deal with swapping drives, or c) dump another $349 on VMWare. I purchased VPC over vmware in the first place because during my evaluations, VPC was more reliable, stable, and faster. Many have argued me on those points the in my scenarios, VMWare wasn't up to the task. Of course, now they have version 4 out so that may be different.
I'm dissappointed but once I heard MS bought VPC, I knew this would happen. It is just way too convenient to run Red Hat 9 in a VM and test and make changes to the web site in the host OS without leaving the guest.
I guess VMWare will be getting my money in the futre. Of course, I"m MSDN so now I get VPC as a part of the subscription. So I'm paying twice.
Thanks,
Leabre
Why are there no more "OrangePC" options for the Mac? Remember when you could buy a processor on a PCI card, ram it in the box, and have a complete Intel-based installation right there in the same box? Why has nobody come out with a product like that in years? No matter how good VPC gets, there is no comparison between running hardware emulation in another OS and running it on real hardware.