The Future Cource of PC OS'es

[Kent Sarikaya]

Well just by going through the links so far you can see that linux is a really neat OS. Its time as mainstream is coming too. It has history, that is time has proven it a success if you take unix as the parent. It is known for its stability and incredible wide range of choices it offers. It just needs drivers and those will be coming. I am sure Dell and Acer will be pushing manufactures to start making drivers, well I already read DELL has started to ask for them.

Good luck with your test with Wine and the various PB compilers!

[Donald Darden]

In searching for a suitable driver for my Canon Pixma IP6000D Printer, I found that Canon USA does not supply these, but there is hope with Canon Japan.  To date the biggest complaint I noted that many people have voiced about any version of Linux is the lack of suitable drivers.  Several people have settled on a driver for a different model that gave them some functionality, some have bought new hardware that included Linux drivers from the vender, and some apparently decided that it was too much hassle, and reverted to Windows.  A few may have gone onto a virtual machine setup to give them the best of all worlds.

One guy said it best, when he said that if you are contemplating a move to Linux in your future, then you should be buying your hardware now with that prospect in mind.  He now buys hardware that can be used either way, and if the vender does not offer drivers openly, he searches to see if someone solved the problem online before he commits and buys.

In noted in passing that Microsoft is not the only one that has changed its model of how drivers tie into the system, Apple has done the same thing for its OS, so finding compatable drivers for use there is a bit of a challenge as well.

There is a company that is stepping up to the challenge,  They market Turboprint for Linux, a software solution that covers many different makes and models.  http://www.turboprint.de/english.html,  It costs roughly $39 U.S.

Several Linux distributions are designed to automate or simplify the prospect of adding new packages to your Linux install.  Red Hat uses what is perhaps the best known, which is the Red Hat Package Manager, or RPM.  Actually, RPM has been adopted for use by other distributions as well, but not all employ it.  This is a qute from one web site:

RPM is a core component of many Linux distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Fedora Project, SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, CentOS, Mandriva Linux, and many others. It is also used on many other operating systems as well, and the RPM format is part of the Linux Standard Base.

This could be an important factor in deciding what distribution you want to start with, as the convenience of having a simplified way to perform changes would benefit the novice the most.

Other Linux distributions might support the Debian DEB model instead.  I found an article on how to convert an RPM package to a DEB package, which might be handly, since you tend to run into RPM more often.

Here is another quoted message, and some links that might be of use:

I've found a useful website which teaches you how to create Debian .deb files, an application package that has been used by various GNU/Linux distribution including Ubuntu, Knoppix, SimplyMEPIS, Linspire, Xandros and Debian GNU/Linux itself.

Hope that this information will be useful to you : Basic_Debian_Packaging

Other relatively useful website : HowToBuildDebianPackagesFromScratch

http://blog.mypapit.net/2006/06/tutorial-how-to-create-debian-deb-package.html
Links at bottom of page:
    * Howto create a simple Debian/Ubuntu Repository
    * Create your own Debian/Ubuntu (*.deb) package
    * Installing Java 2 SDK on Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu
    * How to Compile Pocket PC PDA Application on Linux

http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/RPM-for-Unix-HOWTO-8.html
http://www.hispafuentes.com/hf-doc/HOWTOs/Linux-html-HOWTOs-20021014/HOWTO/RPM-for-Unix-HOWTO.html
http://ubuntuos.wordpress.com/2006/10/06/install-rpm-files-on-debian-and-ubuntu/

    * When Microsoft write about GNU/Linux-related tutorial
    * Unofficial apt-get Repositories for Ubuntu Dapper 6.06
    * Gaim-vv - Gaim with Webcam and Voice support

[Donald Darden]

Here is a brief survey of information from the Internet about live Linux versions,
and even an article or two on creating your own live version from a permanent one installed on your hard drive:

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LiveCDs
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/9569/Linux-LiveCD-Roundup/
http://distrowatch.com/
http://www.linux-live.org/

[Kent Sarikaya]

I was finally happy to check out Haiku as linked earlier by Donald. There is a very exciting tech talk on google video about it and its features and what they are aiming for.
I was so happy when I had heard of Beos, the idea and vision was ahead of its time. I am so glad these guys have put so many man hours and 7 million lines of code to bring us Haiku soon.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=236331448076587879

Back in the 90's when I first started to look at Linux, I remember I was running a 200mhz computer and Beos was the best running distro I had used at the time. Reading about writing programs for Beos, it was a comman factor in almost all of them that the authors always talked about what a pleasant OS it was to develop for and in.  Anyways I think this is very exciting news!!

[Donald Darden]

As I mentioned earlier, it would seem obvious that if there are drivers available for hardware that worik in Windows, and a lack of drivers for the same hardware in an  alternate OS, then why not encapsulate existing Windows drivers so that they can be loaded and called from some of these alternate OSes?  It's not like it can't be done -- after all, it's all just software, or code if you perfer.

Well, I put a query into Google about non-linux drivers in Linux, and came up with some interesting information:
http://www.technetra.com/writings/recent/ndis_wrapper_wifi_html
Which I quote in part:

The NDIS Wrapper project aims at bridging this gap by providing a kernel module to load Windows NDIS device drivers for unsupported hardware.
What is NDIS Wrapper?

NDIS Wrapper allows the Linux kernel to interact with a network device using the Microsoft NDIS driver for that device. NDIS Wrapper translates calls to the Windows NT kernel and hardware abstraction layer into native Linux calls. The project was started in November 2003 by the primary developers, Pontus Fuchs and Giridhar Pemmasani.

The Network Device Interface Specification (NDIS) was jointly developed by Microsoft and 3Com in the days of MSDOS to provide a device-driver programming interface allowing multiple network protocols to share the same network device. Before NDIS existed, hardware vendors provided proprietary drivers for their devices, creating interoperability issues for users.
Using NDIS Wrapper

Getting started with NDIS Wrapper is fairly straightforward. First, you have to install the unsupported network device in your Linux system. Next, download the NDIS Wrapper source package from the project's homepage at ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net. If you are not using a custom kernel, you may be able to save time by using one of the precompiled NDIS Wrapper binary packages that are available for Red Hat and Debian (NDIS Wrapper is provided as part of Mandrakelinux 10). However, if you are using a custom kernel, you will need to have the source tree available for that kernel to compile NDIS Wrapper.

Once you have downloaded the source or binary NDIS Wrapper package, you will need to get the Windows driver for your network device. Generally, it comes on a CD with your hardware; otherwise you will need to download it from the vendor s website. Now that you have both NDIS Wrapper and the Windows drivers, we can get started with the installation. Just follow these steps:
Compile and install

Unpack the source package...

$ tar xzvf ndiswrapper-0.8-rc2.tar.gz
$ cd ndiswrapper-0.8-rc2

Login as "root"...

$ make install

Verify installation of kernel module...

$ ls -l /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/
-rw-r r  1 root root 1342995 Jun 1 17:52 ndiswrapper.ko

Verify the installation of user space utilities...

$ whereis ndiswrapper loadndisdriver wlan_radio_averatec_5110hx
ndiswrapper: /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
loadndisdriver: /sbin/loadndisdriver
wlan_radio_averatec_5110hx: /usr/sbin/wlan_radio_averatec_5110hx

Install Windows driver

Unpack the Windows driver package...

$ unzip wmp54g_driver_utility_v1.3.zip

Install the driver...

$ ndiswrapper -i BCMWL5.INF
Installing bcmwl5
(Note: This will also create the directory: /etc/ndiswrapper)

Verify the installation of the Windows driver...

$ ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5    present

Enable the wireless network interface

Load the NDIS Wrapper kernel module...

$ modprobe ndiswrapper

Verify device recognition by NDIS Wrapper...

$ dmesg
ndiswrapper version 0.8-rc2 loaded ndiswrapper adding bcmwl5.sys
divert: allocating divert_blk for wlan0
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0c:41:65:8f:f9   using driver bcmwl5.sys

Verify network configuration...

$ iwconfig
lo     no wireless extensions.
eth0   no wireless extensions.
wlan0  IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
       Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz
       Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
       Bit Rate:54Mb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
       RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
       Encryption key:off
       Power Management:off
       Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-10 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
       Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
       Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:122 Missed beacon:0

Set up automatic detection of the wireless device at system boot...

$ ndiswrapper -m
Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.conf

Configure the wireless network interface in Fedora

Before you configure the network interface, you will need to know the service set identifier (SSID) and the mode (Ad-hoc, Managed) of your wireless network. If you don t have this information available, take a look at the configuration screens of your wireless access point.

Create the wlan0 configuration file using your favourite text editor...

$ vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0

Add the following lines to the file
(lines in red will vary according to your configuration)...

# NDIS Wrapper Configuration: Linksys WMP54G
DEVICE=wlan0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
TYPE=Wireless
MODE=Managed
ESSID="marin"
CHANNEL=11
IPADDR=192.168.0.210
DOMAIN=private.dom
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=no
IPV6INIT=
RATE=Auto
HWADDR=00:0C:41:65:8F:F9

Save the file and use the "System Settings" -> "Network" control panel to activate the interface
Verify wireless connectivity

$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0  IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"marin"  Nickname: owl.private.dom
       Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz
       Access Point: 00:0F:66:51:06:70
       Bit Rate=54Mb/s
       Encryption key:off
       Link Quality:0/100 Signal level:-47 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
       Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
       Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0  Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:41:65:8F:F9
       inet addr:192.168.0.210 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
       inet6 addr: fe80::200:0c41:fe65:8ff9/64 Scope:Link
       UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
       RX packets:1558941 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
       TX packets:825302 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
       collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
       RX bytes:2305901954 (2199.0 Mb) TX bytes:143025599 (136.3 Mb)
       Interrupt:11 Memory:de000000-de00ffff

Try to ping www.google.com...

$ ping -c 1 www.google.com
PING www.google.akadns.net (216.239.57.99) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 216.239.57.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=240 time=29.6 ms

--- www.google.akadns.net ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 29.622/29.622/29.622/0.000 ms, pipe 2

Finally, surf the Web...
Conclusion

As Linux gains popularity on the desktop, my hope is that hardware vendors will make a better effort to support their customers by releasing native device drivers. Meanwhile, we should thank the developers behind NDIS Wrapper for a job well done!

© Technetra. First published July 2004 in LinuxForYou magazine (www.linuxforu.com).

Okay, this may seem to go a long way towards closing the lack of Linux drivers issue.  But actually, NDIS is only concerned with Network cards, both wired and wireless.  There have been relatively few efforts to support other hardware devices, such as printers, scanners, fax machines, multipuroise devices, Winmodems, gaming devices, and video cards, sound cards, and so on.  Some categories of devices may be getting more help in terms of native Linux drivers than others -- for instance, many video cards are supported with available drivers for Linux, but on the other extreme few printers, scanners, or multifunction devices have any. 

But indirectly, this example also exposes another problem that is going to annoy a lot of people.  And that is that a modern version of Windows supports Plug 'N' Play (PNP), where Microsoft has figured out an elaborate series of tests that usually detect and install the proper drivers for new devices, assuming that they have all been certitied by Microsoft to work with its OS.  PNP is not apparent on systems that come already set up, except that it will recognize the printer, scanner, digital camera, or other device you might add to the system.  Where PNP breaks down is usually that older equipment may no longer be supported, or a vender may have quit supplying driver updates for equipment that is no longer sold.  You may also find a vender that has not had their devices or drivers certifited by Microsoft, so you are forced to run the installation software to get the driver to install.

Ever notice that Windows does not automatically remove drivers for devices that are no longer attached or used with your PC?  The driver remains installed, which simplifies matters if you reattach the same or similar device in the future.  But it is a manual process to actually remove drivers in cases where you do not intend to use that device again.

It appears that the state of the art with Linux is all about manual device management and a search for suitable drivers, unless a vender goes the extra mile and simplifies the process.  But why should they, when the demand for Linux support is so exceedingly small at present.

It's another chicken or egg problem.  I suspect that the number of total Linux users will have to grow substantially, and that a lot of continuing efforts to enhance Linux further will be necessary to bridge the remaining gap between what people are accustomed to under Windows, and will be disappointed by when they try Linux.  But continuing hands-on experience and searchable links on the Internet will do a lot to help.

Probably like some of you, I've had more than my share of helping family and friends keep their PCs reasonably clean and backed up, and have had to spend many hours overcoming problems when they get into trouble.  When people begin to make the move to Linux, are you going to be there to help, or are you going to be just about as lost as they will be?  I was telling my nephew that if he takes on Linux now, then by the time others are ready for it, he will be to,
to guide and assist.  There might even be a future in it.

[Donald Darden]

There are people who go readily to the command line to do things, and many who never have or never will.  Efforts to make Linux more Windows-like have helped gain acceptance, but possibly at the cost of really getting the most out of the operating system and your PC.

There are things easily done from a command line prompt that are hard, if not impossible through the GUI interface you find in Windows.  Want an example?  Try to verify that all the files in directory A exactly match the files in directory B, or that any older versions in directory B are automatically updated from the contents of directory A.  Another example:  Try to append text file Bravo to the end of text file Able.  These are trivial tasks for anyone who has familiarized themselves with some of the features and utilities of DOS.

What we call the command prompt is more correctly known as the command interpreter.  If you ever use Windows, and have been told to use Start/Run and then type "cmd", you are telling the operating system to start a program by the name of cmd.exe, which is an updated Windows version of the old DOS command interpreter.  Cmd.exe gives you a command prompt, and then either
recognizes and responds to a select group of known commands, or searches for an executable file with the name given and calls it, passing any given command line parameters to it during the process.  A simple mechanism, but with powerful connotations.

So if you are contemplating a move to Linux, and you have already come to understand some of the advantages and power of using a command interpreter, then you probably already know that you won't be entirely happy trying to live within any GUI interface, because you need that added power when the GUI mode just doesn't cut it.

In the Unix and Linux worlds, command interpreters are more generally called Shells.  And there is not just one, as with DOS, but several.  You could even say "many".  Actually, there are several DOS ones, as DOS workalikes have their own version, and Windows provides the cmd.exe one, but the differences between them are generally minor, and we tend to think that there is only one.

Linux shells are not all alike.  They have evolved over time.  But rather than making you get off an older version, they just add new ones from time to time,
and these are picked up by the different distributions.  So you have a choice.

Of the mumerous shells available for Linux today, the most common one is likely BASH.  So it is a good one to focus on, and with many distributions, it is the default shell associated with user accounts.  So you may be looking at BASH when you first encounter your command prompt.

It's time for some links on Linux Shells.  I've grabbed these from a Google search on the topic:
http://penguin.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/academic/unix/linux/shells/index.php
http://icrontic.com/articles/ultimate_newbie_guide_gnulinux_shell
http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/
http://lowfatlinux.com/linux-learning.html
http://www.arachnoid.com/linux/shell_programming.html
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

Why is BASH so popular?  Well, it came later, and it borrowed most of the best features from the others.  As someone might say, what's not to like?  By picking a specific shell to learn, you make your life easier.  But note that if a different shell does something that yours doesn't, it is even possible to activate an alternate shell for just that one command, then continue on in the shell of your choice.

I'd tend to suggest that you get a few reference books if you are serious about making the move to Linux.  At least one that is specific to the Linux distribution that appeals to you most, another that covers Linux in more depth, and one that focuses on getting things done in Linux, which would likely cover the shell, some programming tools, networking, and other broad topics.

You can certainly focus on learning everything you need to know by using the free information on the Internet, but it is not as structured, and a nice book can give you something to be reading at those odd times when a computer is not at hand,

[Donald Darden]

Okay, let's say that you feel the tug or lure to try something else at this point, but you are still hesitant.  You want this experience to be as painless as possible, and not to risk anything that you currently have working or saved.  So the very first thing to do is to back up your complete system.  My suggestion for doing this is an external hard drive and suitable software.  Some may prefer burning some CD-Rs or DVD disks, but I think a spare hard drive is the better way to go.  With backup or archival software, such as True Image or Ghost, compression means creating an image that is only a fraction of the original hard drive's space requirements, so you can make multiple backups over time.

Secure in the knowledge that you can resotre your PC to its present state, you can now consider what you want to do next.  If you have played with a live or demo version of Linux, you can choose that, and in most cases, you can find instructions on line for installing that distribution to a hard drive, even creating the necessary drive partitions on the fly from available hard drive space.  Most often, you do this by downsizing available partitions to free up spaces, but you may elect to install another hard drive specific for this use.  You have to decide how you control the boot process as well.  The typical method is a multi-boot
program that gives you choice on boot up.  Another approach is to regulate the boot based on the presence of a floppy disk or CD in the respective drive.

If you buy a book on Linux, say one of the For Dummies series, these generally come with their own Linux distribution on CD.  These will give you the simplest approach to using or installing the provided software.  They also usually give you sites for obtaining updates and participating in online discussions.  But if you are a personally assured individual, you can locate and download your own choice of a distribution.  My best advice is to anticipate your questions, and print off instructions from the Internet before you commit too far, as this is easier with your current setup than to wait until you get stuck down the road.

But let's say you just simply are not ready to cut the knot to Windows, that you have too much invested there, and that you are enticed rather by the idea of having your one PC able to work with each OS independently by what is generally referred to as a Virtualization process.  Is this a good way to go or not?

The Virtual Machine (VM) approach is not confined to one solution.  I found a web page where a number of products are all compared.  Not all these are current, and not all are equally suited.  In fact the presence of so much information (some of it quite brief or limited), makes a general evaluation somewhat difficult.  But there are three columns near the center of the resulting graph that are colored.  Red, meaning No, or Green, Meaning Yes, shows three critical areas that may related to suitability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_virtual_machines

If you see a product that interests you, you may want to check it out in more detail elsewhere.  This link does not answer questions about availability or possible pricing.

There is a possible downside to the VM approach.  That is that it means even more code for your PC to be running, so one can readily guess that going this route could mean a slow PC becoming even slower, particularly if it has limited amounts or RAM, and a PC with limited hard drive space will likely become even more cramped.

In particular, I would look for comments by users about their experience with given products before deciding to commit to one,  Parallel has made a name for itself by providing Windows and Mac OS on the same machine, but do you want its Windows/Linux solution for about $50?  They offer a 15-day trial, but that's lost time if you decide not to buy later.  Still, you could use it as a base line when comparing results with it with other choices. 

Here is a useful link that tells you how to begin with a free copy of VMWare
Player and install the Ubuntu Linux distribution.  These same instructions should work well for other Linux distributions as well.
http://stahlforce.com/dev/index.php?tool=vmlinux

Here is another descriptive process that uses the free VMWare Server software instead:
http://cmsproducer.com/Ubuntu-Linux-Windows-VMware-Server


Note that I am running Windows 2000 Pro with SP4+, and when I tried the method involving VMWare Player, I kept getting a install process interrupted message, and could not get it to work.  But when I switched to the second method, of using VMWare Server, everything went smoothly.  It installed, put an icon on the desktop, and when I clicked on that, I was able to create a new virtual machine and boot up the Knoppix image off the CD.  It was a bit jerky as far as the mouse was concerned, but then I only have a 1.23 GHz PC with 1 GB of RAM, which is a little light on speed and memory for a job like this.  After it finished booting up the guest system, the mouse movement smoothed out.

If you are using an older version of Windows as your host or primary operating system, you may run into some problems with installing VMWare, sort of like I did.  But you still have a number of options.  First, you can check out the particular VM package and see if it supports your version of Windows as the primary or host OS.  Not having checked them all out myself, I did note that Parallel's offering makes this claim:
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/

Supported OSes
Primary OS Support

Multiple Windows operating systems:

    * Windows Vista Home Basic
    * Windows Vista Home Premium
    * Windows Vista Business
    * Windows Vista Enterprise
    * Windows Vista Ultimate
    * Windows 2003 Standard Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows 2003 Web Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows XP Professional Edition SP2
    * Windows XP Home Edition SP2
    * Windows 2000 Professional Edition SP4
    * Windows 2000 Server SP4


NOTE: In case of a Windows primary OS you must have Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher installed.

Multiple Linux operating systems:

    * Fedora Core Linux 4 stock 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS4 stock 2.6.9-5
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS4 stock 2.6.9-5
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES4 stock 2.6.9-5
    * Red Hat Linux 9 stock 2.4.20-8
    * Debian Linux 3.1 stock 2.6.8-2-386
    * SUSE Linux 10.0 stock 2.6.13-15
    * SUSE Linux 9.3 2.6.11.4-20a
    * SUSE Linux 9.2 stock 2.6.8-24.11
    * SUSE Linux 9.1 stock 2.6.4-52
    * Mandriva Linux 10 stock 2.6.3-7
    * Xandros Linux 4.0


NOTE: If using a Linux primary OS, the following software packages must be installed:

    * Sources of currently installed kernel (if you did not install the kernel manually, then you should install kernel-sources package from your distribution);
    * glibc [glibc]
    * gcc [gcc] (included in any development package)
    * X Window system including:
          o xf86vidmode extension (for fullscreen only)
          o XKB extension (for keyboard national layouts and leds support)
    * QT 3.0.5 library multithreaded [qt3]



Guest OS Support

Multiple Windows operating systems:

    * Windows Vista Business
    * Windows Vista Enterprise
    * Windows Vista Ultimate
    * Windows 2003 Standard Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows 2003 Web Edition SP0, SP1
    * Windows XP Professional SP0, SP1, SP2
    * Windows XP Home SP0, SP1, SP2
    * Windows 2000 Professional Edition SP4
    * Windows 2000 Server SP4
    * Windows 2000 Advanced Sever SP4
    * Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP6
    * Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6
    * Windows ME
    * Windows 98
    * Windows 95
    * Windows 3.11
    * Windows 3.1


Multiple Linux operating systems:

    * Fedora Core Linux 3, 4
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS3, WS4
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS4
    * Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES3, ES4
    * Redhat Linux 7.3, 8, 9
    * Debian Linux 3.1
    * SUSE Linux 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3
    * Mandriva Linux 9.2, 10, 10.1
    * Xandros Linux 4.0


FreeBSD:

    * FreeBSD 4.1, 4.3, 4.5, 5.4


Multiple operating systems from the OS/2 and eComStation family:

    * OS/2 warp 3, 4, 4.5
    * eComStation 1.1, 1.2


Sun Solaris:

    * Sun Solaris 9, 10


MS-DOS:

    * MS-DOS 6.22

Now looking at this list, you might wonder how this information helps you,  Well, you will see your Windows or DOS OS supported as a GUEST OS, even if it cannot be used as a primary.  So if you create a dual boot system with one of the Linux distributions, and install the needed packages, you can boot into Linux, then use VM to run your Windows or DOS environment as a guest.

But do you have to buy and use Parallel's software?  Perhaps not.  When you get to the web pages where you can register and download VMWare, you also have access to the versions for Linux, which you can download in place of or as well as the versions for Windows.

[Kent Sarikaya]

Thanks Donald nice article and info. Here is a link to the excellent podcast and this particular episode is about virtual machines, a good listen as are all the other ones at this site:
http://www.grc.com/SecurityNow.htm#50

Episode 50 is about virtual machines.

Also I saw a news cast on cnet about this new notebook for $150. Here is more info on that, it of course runs on Linux. This could be interesting to see how easy it is to use, could this be the mom and pop computer in the near future at this incredible price?
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cheapest-notebook-in-the-world/medison-celebrity-the-150-laptop-282258.php

[Donald Darden]

The first thing you will encounter as you try to install VMWare Server is that it will tell you that you need to install or start the IIS Service, but it also tells you can do that later and repeat the setup.  So I went ahead without doing that.  IIS is going to be needed if your VMWare server is going to talk to other VMWare servers, and that was not my goal, so I figured I could just come back to that later if needed,

Now remember, this free version is marked 1.03, so it is going to have some rough edges, hardly comparable to the VMWare Workstation version 6 on the market now.  But it doesn't cost $189 either.  And we are just doing a test drive, to see if it works and how it feels.  If you decide you want the real deal, then think about signing up for a course in web page building or something, get a student ID, and use that to get an Academic discount on VMWare.  The $50 or so that you can save might pay the cost of the course, giving you two benefits for one.  Of course you still need to find time to do the course.

The first rough edge I found was managing the way I could install a guest system on my PC.  There were a range of choices, but in picking a Linux distributuion, it had to be installed under VMWare; I could not use one that already resided on my system.  And VMWare set up a 8 GB drive partition for that purpose that appeared as a file under Windows.  So when you are in your VMWare environment and running Linux, you don't have access to any drive partitions other than the pseudo one created just for you.  Nor can you boot to that Linux install later, since it does not appear as a bonefied drive patrition to the rest of the system.  You can only access it via VMWare.

I could share certain devices - the keyboard, mouse, monitor, floppy drive, and CD/DVD, and network connection for instance   But not having a shared partition somewhere of a common type that more than one OS can access means it is difficult to hold any data in common.

In practical terms, Microsoft's approach to drives and partitions are to ignore any drive partition that they did not establish themselves.  Linux is a lot more accomodating, because with the proper driver support installed, they can access many types of drive partitions, even the FAT and NTFS partitions used by Microsoft products.  This apparent weakness on Microsoft's part is probably deliberate; they don't want to encourage anyone to use a competing product.
   
And the VM concept does not cancel this out.  In fact, it carries it further.  Each guest system is kept in a virtual place that protects the rest of the system from being effected by any misbehaving application or fatal error  The merits of this approach are that it provides the famos "sandbox" that protects you from the full consequences of dealing with untested and suspect software.

But let's say that your goal is really to try and use the best of both worlds, Mocrosoft's along with Others, to do your job.  The main advantage of VMWare is that you can have several of these running at once, and switch from one to the other at will. The real disadvantage is that the data is not easily held in common.  You need to consider some method of bridging from one file system to another, which could be by treating each OS as part of a network, where some resources can be shared between different Virtual and real machines.
This is complicated, but not impossible.

VMWare Server 1.03 also showed some other rough edges.  It gives no way to eliminate a VM after you create it, and only rudimentary controls when it came to the initial configuration or later modifications.   You can get the VM version of Linux to exit by telling it to shut down, but VMWare does not end on its own - you have to use the Task Manager to kill it.  To get rid of an old VM configuration, you have to reboot or uninstall VMWare Server, at which point you can delete the entries in the Virtual Machine folder.  But VMWare keeps track of the VM configurations in an inventory, and you will not be able to create a new configuration of the same name.  I couldn't figure out how to get around this limitation.

There is a GOTCHA that can happen with VMWare Server, as least as I installed it without activating IIS.  It works fine the first time you call it after it is installed, but thereafter you might get an error message when you try to start the Local Host that says, "There is an error connecting", giving you an error type 511.  You can get aroiund this problem by using Start/Settings/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Component Services, then scrolling down to the entry VMWare Registration Service.  It will likely show that it is Automatic, but not Started.  Right click on the entry and tell it to start, and after that you can get access to the Local Host in VMWare.

Working in the VM environment is something of a challenge.  You are trying to use the mouse and keyboard at three different levels:  As part of the host environment, as part of the VM environment, and of course within the scope of the guest system.  The key to doing this generally lies in when to use the keyboard to switch modes, and then using the mouse to set focus.  To switch from focus mode to the larger scheme seems to take a combination of pressing the Ctrl and Alt keys together.  Then you can use the mouse to scroll up and down or left and right in the VM window, or select Home, which takes you back to your VM management options.  To switch back to Windows, as least to bring up the Windows task bar might take a Ctrl and Alt combination, then a Ctrl and Esc combination.  You may not get the Windows desktop though.  However, the first icon beside the Start button will cause the windows desktop to come to the top.

You are also trying to learn to use Linux, and the Knoppix distribution comes with four desktops, which you will see marked on its lower toolbar.  You can use the Alt + F1 through Alt + F4 key combos to go to a command prompt for any of these.  In fact, Alt + F1 should show you the command prompt used during the boot process - just hit return to confirm that you are at the command prompt level there.  To return to the KDE desktop, just use Alt+F5.

Learning just this much has taken quite a few hours, and of course it takes time to write a detailed post as well.  It's well worth playing with this stuff, because you begin to understand how things work best, and define just what you want or expect in the configuration that you are searching for.  A review of products also imparts a flavor to the way each works, and their respective strong and weal points.

Right now I am of a mind that if you began with a Linux or dual boot machine, you are probably ahead of the guy that wants to try and do all this from within Windows.  The reason is simple:  Microsoft does not even try to play nicely with others, so you don't really have access to "foreign" drives, partitions, and files.  But using Linux as your host machine gives you better prospects of getting to other "real" drives and partitions, even if not those hidden in files in  the host OS file system.

Linux is not as greedy with resources, particularly memory, so it is likely that your PC performance will be somewhat better with Linux as the host.  I'm not trying to kick anybody off of Windows, which is why I propose a dual boot machine.  But setting up a dual boot can be a bit difficult, so read up on how to do that first.  If you decide on a dual boot (actually, multiple boot, since the number of system installs is really only limited by the amount of hard drive space for creating partitions), then I would suggest that you download and install the latest and greatest distribution versions, rather than trying to incorporate a Live version off a CD or DVD as a permanent install.  I've found that there is more risk that something will be missing and reported as an error with the Live versions, because they have to be made somewhat lite in order to be squeezed into a single CD image.   If you can't download because you lack a stable, high speed internet connection, then you can usually buy cheap copies from off eBay and other sources.  Just search eBay by distribution name.

[Donald Darden]

Let's say you are still on the brink of making a decision.  We've talked about many elements already, but no clear cut decision is on the horizon.  Our choices seem to be:

[Frederick J. Harris]

Thank you very much for providing all this interesting information Donald.  Where I'm at with Linux is just pretty much starting out.  I've had to take a detour away from it the past couple months, but I'm hoping to get back with it this fall.  Last Spring I spent several months 'in the trenches' with it though, and that's how I made the progress I did.  I put Ubuntu on my best and newest laptop, and made it a dual boot setup with Windows XP.  Boy, I'll tell ya, I sweated it out pretty bad!  I was worried I'd mess it up somehow and not be able to get anything back working!

It all went in pretty good though.  I did have to go through the manual partitioning though.  After I shut Linux down and attempted to restart XP it was clear that ole Billy knew something fishy was going on though behind his back.  XP went through a file system check trying to figure out what was going on, but then XP started and I havn't had any problems with either installation.  I'm pretty happy with the dual boot setup.  The whole VM concept sounds somewhat problematic to me.

Encouraged by my new laptop's experience with Ubuntu I decided to put Ubuntu's lightweight version 'Xubuntu' on my old Compaq Win2000 laptop and I was not that pleased with Xubuntu.  What I did next was kind of unfortunate in that I decided to stick my recovery CD in the old laptop and just reinstall a fresh Win2000 Pro on it eliminating both my original Win 2000 installation, and Xubuntu.  I assumed incorectly that whatever changes GRUB and possibly other boot strapping software had done to my laptop would be nullified and repaired by the recovery CD.  Not so!  By doing what I did I had apparently lost my master boot record and while I may have managed to get a fresh Windows 2000 installation copied to the hard drive, there was no way to get to it!  Let me tell you, I suffered for a number of days till I finally came up with a solution to that problem.  I had some old MSDOS 6.22 disks about and I was able to get that installed on the laptop.  I'm assuming as part of its install it FDISK'ed my laptop's hard drive, thereby repairing the MBR.  At least that's my interpretation.  Anyway, after that I was able to put Win 2000 back on the laptop, and in fact its the one I'm typing on right now.  I looked at that old laptop as expendable till I messed it up!  Then all I could do was think of fixing it!

I don't know if this experience of mine was just a fluke or not, but I kind of suspect that this may be a hidden danger that many people don't realize about these dual boot setups.  I remember about 6-7 years ago when I was first messing around with Linux and PowerQuest's Partition Magic I recall reading in their 'Boot Magic' documentation that these boot sector modification programs that modify the boot record must make a backup, and if the boot loader is uninstalled as part of its uninstallation the original condition of the bood sequencing code must be restored.  And I suspect this is what I had run amuck of.  At this point I have a perfectly functioning dual boot setup with Linux on my good laptop, but I look at it pretty much as dynamite!  The very first thing I do when I get back into Linux in another month or so is do a pile of research on GRUB and the whole issue of bootstrapping.  I simply want to know more about it so I never get caught like I did last Spring.

[Charles Pegge]

Not wanting to engage with these complications, I run separate Linux and Windows PCs. They are both connected to the Internet via a 4 port ethernet hub  modem, and I manually bounce files from one machine to the other via a directory on my website. It saves technical hassles and provides a form of remote backup at the same time.

The PCs are about 2 feet away from each other but the files going between them do a trip from Wales to Italy and back, a round trip of bout 2000 miles. Such is technology.

[Donald Darden]

Charles. to complete your setup, why not look for a KVM switch to connect both PCs to the same Keyboard, Monitor, and Mouse?  Then you can simply toggle between the two machines with some keys on the keyboard.  I found mine at TigerDirect, and got a nice modular one with cables for only $26 (plus s/h).  It works very well, and there is no software driver involved, so you can use it with PCs running different OS's.  If one PC is off, the other is automatically enabled, but the toggle is also a quick way to kill the monitor, keyboard, and mouse when you want to leave your PC for awhile.

The KVM switch is super great for me, because I just plug a family or friend's PC in as I set it down near mine, and I'm up and running in a very short time. It is also a quick and easy way to connect a laptop up to a desktop mouse, jeyboard, and monitor and use it alteratively with your desktop, without having to put one down and take up the other.

I also see somewhat more expensive versions that include switching USB as well.  This could be helpful if using any USB devices, like a mouse or keyboard.
Otherwise, you might have to do what I do:  Unplug and replug the mouse USB
to each PC as needed.  Something of a hassle, and has about convinced me to go get a new wired mouse, even though the USB/RF mouse seems to work better.

You can find a few cheeper KVM Switches, but this is the one I ordered, and I like it very much.  Looks like they cut the price by a few dollars as well.

[Donald Darden]

I've been busy cleaning up my brother-in-law's PC for the last two days, and can finally take a break because I now have to wait for a PCI IDE Controller Card I ordered to come it.

So back to the topic at hand.  Here are some more links I found interesting:
http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/vmware/
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,69849,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,69849,00.html
http://www.parand.com/say/index.php/2006/03/07/easiest-way-to-get-linux-vmware-ubuntu-image/

I'll be back to expand on this post after I do a bit more searching under some other criteria.

One of the things that interests me now is getting some distribution of Linux back on this PC to use in a dual-boot fashion.  My experience from before is that there are several ways you can accomplish this.  They all involve replacing  he normal boot process with something that provides you with choice.  As it happens, Windows versions since NT (not 9x/Me) use a program called NTLDR (NT Loader) that reads the configuration in a text file called Boot.ini that is found in the C:\ root directory.  Boot.ini can be modified, and often is, to reduce the 30 second pause when booting before using the default setting.  People can shorten the time to 10, 5, or 3 seconds, or even make it 0, which means always use the default.  You can also specify which boot option is the default.  And you can manually make new entries, but they had better be to valid boot choices, or your system will hang, and have to be restarted.

You probably have already heard of GRUP. It is the same general idea for Linux, but people that use GRUB may find it easy or hard, depending upon how familiar they are with how their system's drive partitions are set up.  You will also hear some people say that the order that you install the OS'es makes a difference.
Which is not strickly true, just as long as you don't try to assign them to the same drive partition.

In general, the first partition that DOS or Windows can find is always considered the C: drive. and DOS or Windows will try to boot from that
partition.  If the drive partition is not formatted, or is not formatted as either a FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS partition, Windows will ignore it completely.  Windows
also has a different way of scanning for drive partitions than Linux does, so the drive designations in Linux do not necessarily align to the letter assignments given by Windows.  And since you can change letter assignments used by Windows, it is even less certain what matches up to what.  But don't worry, if you know something about what is stored on each drive, you can sort it all out.

The determination of what gets booted and how is really controlled by the built-in BIOS that each PC has.  Newer BIOS chips may offer multiple boot options, such as adding the ability to boot from CD, DVD, and USB drives.  The BIOS chips are generally plug-in chips, and some people replace them with newer versions that they buy in an effort to increase the flexibility of older PCs.

Anyway, suppose you are starting with a Windows box, and you decide that you are now ready to venture into downloading and installing one of the many Linux distributions.  It really does not matter which one. You've backed up your PC, and you have downloaded (or are about to) the distribution of choice.

Then this article might interest you.  It shows you how you can get the PC to adapt to being a dual-boot method by modifying the Boot.ini file, and the tools that can be used for this purpose.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=87751

Now an interesting thing about Boot.ini is that you can set the comment field alongside each boot choice to anything you want.  That is what the user will see on the screen.  If you leave a blank comment, the user will not even know that there is a boot option at that position.  So you could hide the fact that you have Linux or any other os on your PC.  NTLDR only pauses when there is more than one choice, so the fact that it pauses should indicate there is more than one, but only by stepping up and down the list can they be sure how many.  And with Boot.ini a text file, it is easy to modify, although you will have to clear some of the attribute settings first (it is normally system, hidden, and rread only).

[Charles Pegge]

Thanks Donald, I'll add a a KVM switch to my shopping list, along with some USB flash drives. With these, I could forget about backup CDs & DVDs.

But how about this:

http://pendrivelinux.com/

Carry a few Linuxes in your shirt pocket.