You might also want to consider just getting another box. Keep one stable for real work, and play on the other.
If your finances, living space, or briefcase won't support two whole computers, you could get one or more external USB hard drives and boot the experimental stuff on that. Aside from some magic grub configuration, Linux on a USB drive acts just linux on normal hardware. That is NOT the case for virtual hosts. Experimentation is great fun. Having a reliable, running system, though, is mandatory. I thought Microsoft was no longer selling XP licenses, BTW. marbux wrote: > Time is approaching fast for a software system rebuild on my desktop > machine. My current set-up is largely a series of work-arounds to get > going again as quickly as possible after a motherboard replacement and > addition of a SATA drive to an existing EIDE. I still have hardware > issues to work past, but the current system is a WinXP host with > Kubuntu 8.04 and Mepis running as guests under Virtual Box. > > My problem in essence is that I love to download and test drive > software but am not set up to do so without introducing instability to > the core system, particularly given that it is WinXP. So here's the > broad strokes fantasy for the rebuilt system in need of a reality > check: > > 1.Host system: a minimalist Linux pretty much used only to host virtual > guests. > > 2. Guest virtual systems: > > a. Production Kubuntu 8.04 (not used for testing software); > > b. Production WinXP (not used for testing software) > > c. Other guest OS instances as desired for software testing and > playing purposes. > > My production need for WinXP is actually fairly minimal; WordPerfect > and Isys Desktop search are my only "don't want to do without" Windows > apps, other than utilities needed to maintain WinXP. All of my other > production itches can be scratched on Linux. So a shared physical > partition for data seems workable, something I've done previously in > dual-boot scenarios without virtualization. > > I don't know whether Microsoft will allow me to have dual virtual > instances of WinXP Pro (non-OEM version), but I could pick up a copy > of XP Home for my purposes. No interest in Vista. > > Are there any obvious gotchas in the way of this scenario? > > Best regards, > > Paul > > > > -- > Universal Interoperability Council > <http:www.universal-interop-council.org> > _______________________________________________ > EUGLUG mailing list > euglug@euglug.org > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug -- Bob Miller K<bob> [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list euglug@euglug.org http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
