I hear and listen to people on their Macs always harping about Parallels or VMWare Fusion being so kick ass and such. Yeah, no problem; I run VMWare Fusion on my MacBook Pro 17″ with a little Ubuntu and a sprinkle of Windows XP installed “just in case”.

I run XP in there becase inevitably I run into something that is limited to Windows. Like my CAC card for work. That thing’s junk applications so far only work in Windows (I have since read however that some Army guys got theirs to work in Linux and Mac OS).

I run Ubuntu in there for the rare occasion I need to help someone with something Linux. Normally though my Mac OS is close enough to Linux in Command Line and application availability I don’t fire up VMWare Fusion much.

On this Ubuntu 8.04 box however, I tend to tinker a LOT and tonight was no acception. I keep helping people get out from under the super heavy overhead of Vista in favor of the lesser of the two evils “XP”. If I had my way they would get helped to a healthy dose of Ubuntu and that would be that. People are stuck in their ways though, so I help them remain stuck and give them a bee line for XP.

Tonight (well it started around noon today, and it is well after 10pm tonight) I installed Vista Ultimate Edition 32bit from a DVD iso I had laying around (honestly, I have no idea how I came by way of this iso).

The install was done inside VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org). A good install how-to is available at Ubuntu Geek (http://www.UbuntuGeek.com). I followed it up until I started installing things, then I ran away on my own. The biggest thing to remember is that the OSE version does not include USB support. The precompiled packages available in the downloads area at VirtualBox do; with a little tweaking of a file here and there (see the UbuntuGeek tutorial, it’s perfect for Hardy).

Ubuntu & Vista

Here is a screenshot of my install after all the Windows updates are done, VirtualBox Guest Additions installed (Guest additions enables Network and Sound for Vista in Ubuntu) and I clicked “Full Screen” so it basically took up one of the two monitors as “Full Screen” and walla.

I’m only running 512mb ram, 15gb hd space, 32mb video ram and it seems slow, but fine for playing around. When I get back from TDY I plan on maxing this machines ram (think it’ll go 2gig) and upping the server’s ram to 4gb.

In closing, if you are running Ubuntu; head to the UbuntuGeek link (^ up there), give VirtualBox a whirl and erase that damn NTFS partition you keep sharing out to your other OS. Games are no big deal to give up, computers are for dorkin’ off on; Wii, PS3 and Xboxes are for playing games anyhow silly rabbit. Besides there are actually some totally cool games for Linux out there. Wine now runs a TON of games (I’ve got Max Payne and Max Payne 2 running shit hot in Wine).

Maybe I’ll do another props to Wine while I’m gone TDY.

Take care,

Justin

P.S. I figured I better show Vista running windowed so people didn’t assume I went and Gimped (Photoshoped) a full screen shot of Vista in with a full screen shot of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Running VirtualBoxed Vista

So, here it is, Vista running in VirtualBox windowed. For the picture up top I selected “Full Screen”. You can also pull the boxed version however you want it, even maximize it to one monitor, or pull it across both, doesn’t matter once you’ve got Guest Additions installed.