[TriLUG] WinXP in QEMU?

[Ben Pitzer]

David,

Take a look at Win4Lin Pro.  Win4Lin recently released the Pro version
which allows users to run XP and Win2k in a process under Linux.  It
uses QEMU, and while it doesn't get the 'better than native' OS
operation speeds of the Home version (which only runs Win95/98/ME, not
2k or XP), it does get fairly decent speeds, I'm told.  Plus, the OS
doesn't know it's not native.  It does one thing, I know, that WINE
never will, and that is support customized toolbars, VB extensions,
and macros in MS Office.  There are, I'm sure, other things that
you'll be able to do better as well.  VMWare will give you similar
benefits, in many respects, but it does require a natively installed
version of each OS, while Win4Lin installs the OS in the user's
homedir.

The biggest thing, though, is the price.  Win4Lin Pro is $100, while
VMWare is $300.  VMWare is possibly better for the heavy duty power
user, but for non-geeks, Win4Lin will probably do very well.  Note
that it probably won't do serious games or graphics intensive stuff,
if that's what her kids want, but it'll be fine for Quickbooks.  OOo
will probably do the rest very well, but you'll be able to install
Office on WinXP under Win4Lin, too, as well as most other Windows apps
that she might need.

With a free VM, you get what you pay for, in my opinion.  While many
folks have gotten things to work perfectly, would you rather take the
chance that you'll have hours of tweaks to get it to that point, only
to have hours of work fixing it if it breaks, or would having a
support source to help you out work better?  Plus, if this is her work
laptop, it's a writeoff for the company.  Your call, though.

-Ben Pitzer


On Apr 7, 2005 12:12 PM, David McDowell <turnpike420 at gmail.com> wrote:
> anyone have good success with WinXP Home/Pro in QEMU?? (I'll be trying
> QEMU on CentOS 3.4 or 4.0 possibly).  CEO keeps having terrible
> problems with her kids and her XP installation constantly crashing...
> I've almost convinced her to try linux, but need to give her a way to
> get to Microsoft Office and Quickbooks, figured a free VM is better
> than paying for crossover or something.
> 
> How'd the networking and how's QEMU on allowing the VM to access the
> local /home of the host OS?
> 
> Thanks,
> David McD
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