[Wylug-discuss] Cheap Virtualisation-Capable Laptop

[Dave Fisher]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 09:39:45PM +0100, James Holden wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 07:45:34PM +0100, Dave Fisher wrote:
> > I'd love to use something like an EEEPC, but I'm guessing that their
> > celeron/atom processors don't support virtualisation.
> 
> I frequently use Virtualbox for the odd bit of IE CSS testing, and so
> that Mrs H can watch ITVs miserable attempts at VOD.
> 
> It seems to perform quite well, and none of my machines do the fancy
> hardware virtualisation - they're all quite ancient really.
> 
> What am I missing?

Possibly, the fact that I've not tried VirtualBox yet. I tried VMware on
one of the Thinkpads and it was unacceptably slow (certainly 30 sec,
possibly minutes per screen refresh).

That could be related to use of an external HDD for the Windows image or
limited memory (<400MB), but it was very disappointing.

What's VB like to configure (especially creating the Windows image)?

> 
> [Also... if you're wanting rid of any ancient thinkpads, let me know. I
> love mine to bits but I'll bet it's more ancient that yours. I can't
> stand the modern cheap laptops, they're all **bendy**!]

Sorry, the Thinkpads are owned by GBdirect, and they've probably got
some commercial life left in them for Linux-only tasks. I think that
they are 6-7 years old.

Dave