[Wylug-discuss] Cheap Virtualisation-Capable Laptop

[James Holden]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 09:57:13PM +0100, Dave Fisher wrote:
> 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 sounds unusual. Sounds like it may not like the X video driver or
something.

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

Hmm... if it was a USB2 external drive, it should be OK.

I give XP 256MB of memory to play with, and it seems happy with that.

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

Pretty much the same as VMWare. Configure the machine, create an empty
disk image and install from CD. I've also had success network booting
virtual machines. We netboot our new server installs.

Like VMWare, the virtual image size on disk grows as the virtual disk is
filled.

Moving/copying images from one machine to another is painless.

It's a lot like VMWare really.

There are two versions of VMWare, a GPL version and a commercial one,
but even the commercial one is free (beer) for "personal use" even if
that personal use is for business.

Providing laptops with it pre-loaded for training purposes may not be
considered personal use though.

That said, you don't lose very much with the GPL version. USB support is
about all.

On Ubuntu, it's a matter of apt-get install virtualbox-ose.

> > [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.

No problem. They certainly will have Linux life left in them at 6-7 years
old, but I've never heard of a company that would consider kit that old
as having commercial life left in them ;-)

Quite encouraging actually, and proof that Linux really is better for
the environment.

James

> 
> Dave
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Wylug-discuss mailing list
> Wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/wylug-discuss
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://list.wylug.org.uk/pipermail/wylug-discuss/attachments/20080720/94f73bec/attachment.bin