[dundee] Virtualisation, any wise words?

[chris wyllie]

Hiya,

Things here in Edinburgh were going fine until I was told that for our RAD
course this term we're using, wait for it, VB.NET!?! I mean seriously, wtf?
Anyway, that kinda means I have to create a working windows system somehow
on my carefully set up Linux machine here(almost tears now lol).

I'm aware I could reinstall everything and create a dual boot with XP/Linux
but I don't really want to mess about with things just now. I also looked at
setting up XP on an external drive but the hacks involved scared the ****
outta me.

I know Gordon's done a fair bit of virtualisation and I'm sure more of you
have. Basically, is it a viable option to set up a virtual machine running
winXP to do my windows development on? Will it function and be fast enough?
(I'll attach my specs).

If so, what VM software would you recommend(Qemu/Xen/VMware/other?) and any
links to tuts on setting it up would be appreciated. the ones I've found so
far seem to think that the install will be too slow to work from properly,
which would be a shame.

I'm running Elive Gem(so Debian Etch) on:
Centrino Duo @ 1.66GHz
1Gb RAM
~1Gb Swap
120Gb HDD

Ooh, also if anyone could recommend a large(>=300Gb) USB2 external drive
that works well with *nux that would be fantastic.
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