[SWLUG] virtualisation queries

[Jonathan Wright]

bascule wrote:
> i have installations of dos/3.11/os2/win98 on another machine and i've been 
> wondering about possibly virtualising them on my linux box, i'm currently 
> wading through the sites for vmware and virtualbox, i'm getting a bit 
> confused as to whether i need to have a newer cpu with the hardware support 
> for virtualisation, it seems that for dos/3.11 i might not but i might for 
> os2, my cpu is an amd x2 socket 939 4200 which doesn't have such support. has 
> anyone tried this? if so, what virtualisation method did you use,
> i've also got some pages open on qemu but i've read that qemu is quite slow,
> i have tried dosbox in the past but i didn't manage to get all my old games 
> working which is why i built the other box.
> also has anyone made a virtual disk from existing installs of the above oses 
> (plural?) or did you have to 'install' from scratch?
> i would welcome any suggestions on this subject
> 
> bascule

If you're going down the route of VMware (Workstation or Player, 
although you'll need Workstation to create the environment), then no. 
The program simply runs as a program which just happens to contain an 
operating system within it.

I used to run Windows XP on top of Linux on a AMD XP processor without 
issue (although it wasn't the fastest setup in the world).

The hardware virtualisation relates to a much lower level, where a 
'hypervisor' sits on the processor(s) dividing up the memory and cpus 
between different whole systems. For example, on one server you could 
run a DNS server, Web server and Mail server, but each within their own 
OS, acting independently of each other as though they were on their own box.

Personally, I work with VMware Workstation (has very good support for 
current versions of windows, configuring it to work within a VMware session.

As to installation - if you have a current installation you may be able 
to create an new installation and some how copy the data across between 
the two files, but that may be quite difficult, depending on the program 
you're using.

I think with some of the linux-based ones, you can select a partition to 
contain the data, rather than create a file, which may help.

-- 
Jonathan Wright

  e: jonathan at netwrker.co.uk
  w: http://netwrker.co.uk/

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