I have always wanted to run a UNIX OS on my PC but I was always daunted by the thought that I will need to do the usual creation of a UNIX file-system partition and creating a dual booth system. With tools like Partition Magic and Booth Magic you can do that easily but the trade off is that to be able to switch between OS, you will need to reboot your computer.
Also you will need to reformat a portion of your hard disk to another file system that is not compatible with your existing Windows OS (like the Linux X file system). This is hard to manage on the hardware side and also you will not be able to use both OS at the same time on the same machine.
openvXM let's you get away from the multi-boot hell. To get the software go to http://www.openxvm.org/ there you will see that this project is community supported with backing from Sun. Sun recently has been active on "open-source" projects like OpenSolaris. Also, check out my previous post about VirtualBox, another free tool to create a virtual machine.
Some of the IT experts think they do this "free software" strategy to get a bigger market share like what they did with the programming platform Java. Expect to have frequent updates to this software since many developers from Sun and the open source community are working to add more features and functionality.
Once you downloaded and installed the software, you can press CTRL-N to start the virtual machine creation:
NOTE: You will only need to do this once for each of the OS you want to run.
The new virtual machine wizard will open. Read the descriptions on the windows that will follow to get the hang of it on each step:
Type in the name of the virtual machine. This is arbitrary but make sure to name it to something you will easily remember. Also choose the type of OS that you plan to run on this virtual machine. In this example I entered UNIX as the name and Solaris as the OS Type:
Next enter the base memory of the machine (this will be taken from the RAM of your computer so you might need to add more physical if you want to use a significant amount of RAM for your virtual machine):
The virtual hard disk screen will ask which existing virtual hard disk will be used. Since this is a new setup, I clicked New to create a new virtual hard disk:
There are two types of virtual disk, one is dynamic and one is fixed. I chose dynamic for this example:
Make sure to allocate enough hard disk space for your machine. If you plan to install large applications on your virtual machine, put in a minimum of 16GB and add more depending on your software's requirement:
After that the virtual hard disk is created and you can now use it as a boot hard disk:
A summary screen will appear, make sure to review the details and hit back if you need to correct anything:
After the creation of the virtual machine you will see your new machine on the left side of the main interface:
To start using the virtual OS, you will need to mount a CD where the installer of the OS is located. In my case I have my drive F contain the Solaris OS installer suitable for my 386 AMD processor. Click Mount the CD and then click Start:
You should see the installation screen on the virtual terminal:
All standard input output of the OS you use are sent to the virtual terminal and you can send keyboard commands to it like an ordinary machine.
With VirtualBox you can run any OS on top of any OS. You can emulate Windows Vista on a Linux computer or vice versa. The good thing is that you won't even have to reboot your computer to be able to use more than one OS at a time. This is very ideal for users who often need to manage more than one OS on the same machine at the same time. You can save electricity costs and also a great amount of resource (i.e. another physical computer).
Also, since this is a virtual computer, the interface allows you to shutdown the virtual computer like a real computer. To do this click Machine and then ACPI Shutdown:
Since this is a virtual computer you can have an option to pause it unlike on a real computer where everything happens real-time.
If you need to use a floppy drive or CD/DVD drives on the virtual machine, use the Devices menu to mount them:
You can get detailed information about the virtual machine by clicking the Machine menu and then Session Information:
You can use the above screen to validate your virtual machine's parameters. I was very happy with this free "virtualization" software and I am sure it will be on my PC for a long time.
Do you know any other ways to run multiple OS on the same machine at the same time? Post your tips here on the comments section.
