[vox] XP, VMWare and Redhat

[Rob Rogers]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 08:42:49AM -0800, Ryan wrote:
> Please post messages in text only (this is one of the mailing list rules), 
> most of us don't or can't read HTML email.

And I'm replying to Ryan's message because I couldn't read Z Kofler's

> - --- De-HTMLed message ----
> On Wednesday 31 December 2003 07:00 am, Z Kofler zkofler-at-hotmail.com 
> |lugod| wrote:
> > This is just a note for anyone that would like to run Windows XP as a
> > native OS and Linux as a virtual OS at the same time on the same PC.
> 
> 
> > I have installed VMWare and Redhat Linux in VMWare's virtual environment on
> > my XP Dell Latitude D800 wide screen (15.4 inches - 1920 x 1200 pixels) Lap
> > Top.  Everythings working great -- X windows, networking, etc.  My only
> > complain is that the virtual window provided by VMWare that properly fits
> > the laptop is only 11 7/8 inches wide.  A pretty small window to see well
> > w/ eyes over 40.  I'm running both RH Enterprise 3.0 and RH-8, although I'm
> > planning to replace RH-8 w/ RH-7.3 (so that I have both the old and the new
> > gnu tools and libraries).

You say the virtual windows doesn't fill your screen... Is that at a
console, or running X? If it's running X, then try changing resolutions.
Are you going full screen with VMWare, or running it in a window? If
you're going full screen, you should be able to set the guest resolution
to 1920x1200 and it will fill your screen the same as your host OS. If
you're in a window, try setting it to one setting below that
(1600x1200?) and it will fill up most of your screen.... You did install
the VMware tools in the guest OS right?

> > For those who want to try this, here are some tips: 1. Go w/ a supported
> > Linux OS by VMWare (I tried RH Enterprise 2.1 and never could get X windows
> > to work).  2. It requires a lot of memory; i.e., 512 MB (you're dividing up
> > RAM between XP and Linux). 3. A 'large' high resolution monitor, so the
> > virtual window is a decent size.

There's a reason they support specific versions of both guest and host
OS. You may get others to work, but it's often not worth the effort.
Also, depending on what you're doing, you don't necessarily need a lot
of memory. I started using VMWare around 1.0 (I bought VMWare for Linux
the first month it was out, and shortly thereafter was a beta-tester for
VMWare for WindowsNT shortly before it's 1.0 release) This was running
on both a laptop with 160MB and a desktop with 64MB. The only issue is
you have to dedicate a certain portion of RAM to the guest OS. If you're
not using a ton of memory in either your guest or host, you can get away
with giving your guest only 32 or 64MB...especially if your guest is
Linux, and you aren't doing anything too intensive with it. I haven't
actually run WindowsXP, so I have no idea how much memory it requires,
but back running VMWare on a 400MHz with 64MB split evenly between the
host and guest I never had a problem.