Multiple OS Computing Through Virtualization

Portable computing with your customized desktop and applications.

I have been quite impressed by the stability and speed of my computer since removing Vista and installing various flavors of Linux. Sometimes, however, there is software that I want to run that is only available in Windows. For example, I maintain my aircraft systems and flight management knowlege by using a Windows computer based training application. My favorite audio editor is also a "strictly Windows" application that needs at least Windows XP SP2. One solution is to operate a dual-boot system, with Windows using one partition on my hard drive and Linux on the other. That does work, and that is how I computed for quite a while. Eventually, I began to feel that there was a bull in my china shop...Windows was occupying more space than I felt it should have on my system, and what I really sought was the stability, speed, and overall efficiency of native Linux.

Enter the concept of virtualization. Virtualization is essentially a means of using one operating system to run software (or a whole OS) native to another. Here are some things a virtual machine can do:

• Run Windows applications on a Linux or a Macintosh computer.
• Run Linux applications on a MAC or Windows PC.
• Run MAC OSX Windows PC. See Wei-Meng Lee's PearPC page for the details.
• Enable a USB or CD/DVD based system to run within Windows.
• Use another OS for diagnostic or troubleshooting purposes.
• Sandbox (isolate) and run one system without risk of propagating viruses or other malware to another.

Consider the incredible flexibility available! All one really needs is a way to translate the functions between operating systems. There are four different software packeges that will be discussed here, that enable multi-operating system computing: WINE, Virtualbox, VMware and QEMU.