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Hi everyone,
So I've recently been thinking about going back to my Linux roots. I used Gentoo in 2002 for about 3 years, but then I got a laptop and went to college and went back to Windows (sadly). Considering all the programming I like to do, I'm thinking about going back and trying out either Ubuntu or Arch and I have some problems I want to sort out before I wipe out my laptop (Thinkpad T61p) and go for it:
1) I have a docking station (or more accurately, a port replicator). How does docking/undocking work with an external monitor and such?
2) I'm thinking about giving VMware or Virtualbox a shot and doing the setup that allows virtualization in Linux and also natively booting into Windows if I really need to. Does anyone have experience with this? I've read a lot of articles on it, but it still seems like an early hack, and I'd like something stable. If I can get this to work well, I'll definitely switch.
Thanks!
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2) I'm thinking about giving VMware or Virtualbox a shot and doing the setup that allows virtualization in Linux and also natively booting into Windows if I really need to. Does anyone have experience with this? I've read a lot of articles on it, but it still seems like an early hack, and I'd like something stable. If I can get this to work well, I'll definitely switch.
You don't mean have the virtual machine access your Windows partition, do you? Personally I have a dual boot of Windows and Linux. In Linux, I also have VirtualBox-gtk to use certain tools in Windows. However, since I require different Windows setup, I don't have the virtual machine access my Windows partition.
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Well, I used to dual boot and it was a huge pain in the ass, so I'm really hoping that I can get this to work so I can do minor stuff without rebooting. Then, when I want to do some CAD work or something, I can boot back over and still have the same setup, but just much faster.
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Dual boot is really easy to set up. Just make sure you install Windows first, and then Arch, that way Grub will work properly. There's even a wiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … _Dual_Boot
Edit: Oh, I guess you don't want to dual boot. Hm, VirtualBox is fairly simple also if you want to use that to run Windows, but it lacks most (at least for me) in video, so nothing video graphics intensive can really be done.
Last edited by watsonalgas (2008-12-12 14:17:12)
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I think you can do anything in Virtualbox except stuff requiring DirectX.
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I do want to dual boot, but I also want to be able to access the same partition in Virtualbox.
Dual boot is really easy to set up. Just make sure you install Windows first, and then Arch, that way Grub will work properly. There's even a wiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … _Dual_Boot
Edit: Oh, I guess you don't want to dual boot. Hm, VirtualBox is fairly simple also if you want to use that to run Windows, but it lacks most (at least for me) in video, so nothing video graphics intensive can really be done.
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I do want to dual boot, but I also want to be able to access the same partition in Virtualbox.
watsonalgas wrote:Dual boot is really easy to set up. Just make sure you install Windows first, and then Arch, that way Grub will work properly. There's even a wiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … _Dual_Boot
Edit: Oh, I guess you don't want to dual boot. Hm, VirtualBox is fairly simple also if you want to use that to run Windows, but it lacks most (at least for me) in video, so nothing video graphics intensive can really be done.
Well, this is very possible. You just need to mount your Windows partition in Linux and then you can have it as a Shared Folder in VirtualBox. I would think the best is just a separate partition where you have all the files you need to access in both, and either get the ext2 driver for Windows or NTFS-3g for Linux (depending if you want that partition to be NTFS or EXT3).
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I say QEMU w/ KVM is the best virtualization setup if you have a CPU that supports AMD-V/Intel VT technology. I use it all the time to run Windows for ArcGIS and other Windows-based mapping/geospatial packages. If it can do that, I'm sure that anything besides extreme CAD usage would run at acceptable speeds. I never really understood why so many people think VirtualBox is so great.
BTW, as someone else has said, don't try to let the VM see your native Windows partition. Just create a virtual disk for the install and mount/share the partition for file transfers.
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