Virtualisation explored Part 2
Posted by Simon Salvin on 03. Jan 2009 on PC, TechnologyI’ve had some time off over Christmas, so as promised in my earlier post I’ve been playing, oops I mean testing some virtualisation software.
I was quite happy with moving my VM to VMWare’s Player, my only criticisms in doing this have been the lack of Additions software which enables smooth mouse transitions between the host PC and VM, available in the Workstation version, known as VMWare Tools, the cost of this puts it out of reach of the home user enthusiasts especially when free options are available.
If you’re going to create a Windows VM only then there’s no need to go beyond Microsoft‘s Virtual PC 2007, but as I’ve been using both XP and Ubuntu then a good universal program is required.
Enter Sun Microsystems’ Virtual Box, a FREE open source package.
VBox allows the creation of new VM’s as well as reading other VM’s created with VMWare and Virtual PC. So with this in mind I created a new VM using Ubuntu and then used my XP VM created with Virtual PC 2007 and then read with VMWare Player. I did run into a slight problem with this, but quickly (ish) rectified after a Google search. Ish being quick to find the answer, a little bit longer to implement it!
I’ll do this the wrong way round and give you my favourite choice first, then tell you all about it. And for that reason you’ve probably guessed that VBox is my choice.
Firstly the installation was simple, click next, next, next with all the default options and the program was installed in seconds. Then the creation of the VM, this was done through a step by step wizard and easier to follow than Virtual PC 2007. Again within a minute I was ready to start the installation, on inserting my Ubuntu disc and starting my VM I was prompted to mount the disc, by accepting the disc spun in to action and the disc menu options appeared within the VM window, following the Ubuntu installation guidance the virtual PC was up and running within 40 minutes.
My favourite part about VBox are the Virtual additions available to both Windows & Linux, something Virtual PC 2007 doesn’t cover for Linux. This is an installation provided within the VBox program that installs directly on to the VM, it allows integration of the mouse between host and guest so that you can scroll between the two operating systems without releasing the mouse each time you jump between the two. It also adds a VGA driver for enhanced display in the VM and a shared folder option allowing you to map a network drive within the VM to a folder in the host OS allowing you to share files between the two.
I did have to enter a small piece of code to install the additions as installations are a little different within Linux & Ubuntu, a quick Google search sorted that. So all good!
Moving on to XP, this is where I ran in to difficulty, should I have done a clean install then not a problem, but as VBox stated it would read VM’s created in Virtual PC then I thought I’d just open my already created XP VM. The problem was it wouldn’t open it! Again a quick dash around the pages of a Google search shed some light on the subject, I was using the new VBox Version 2.1.0, a number of people had reported the same issue, something I’m sure will be fixed in the next release, and so to over come the issue, a quick download of the previous version 2.0.6, installed and opened the XP VM, followed by an update to the new version 2.1.0 which then automatically converted the VM setting allowing it to open, a slight detour but well worth the effort, quickly followed by the install of Virtual Additions and I was on my way, well nearly….
The final issue I had was the sound, not a problem in my Ubuntu VM, just XP, and again a number of reports on the net with the same issue, this one I haven’t managed to figure out just yet, maybe it’s another fix for the next release? I couldn’t work out whether it was XP Service Pack 3, the soundcard drivers in my laptop which is was struggling to virtualise or just a glitch in the VBox program? For now I’m really not too bothered about sound, and don’t let it put you off trying VBox as it’s not a distinct XP VM issue.
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