on 21:35 Wed 02 Mar, Rudi Ahlers (Rudi at SoftDux.com) wrote: > On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 7:56 PM, compdoc <compdoc at hotrodpc.com> wrote: > >>Yes, I know that I could have used KVM, VMWare > >>or VirtualBox, but I wanted to use what's included already. <...> > What I'm getting at: > > Can, or will virtualization replace dual boot systems It far and away already has. Dual-booting is a bastard compromise which forces you to select between altnernative OSs, doesn't allow for simultaneous access to features (and storage) of both, and generally necessitates use of some low-standard transfer storage partition (e.g.: vfat). Virtualization allows you to have your pick of base host OS (Linux, Windows, Mac, or bare-iron virtualization with some technologies), while offering a reasonable facsimile of bare-iron performance, often allowing multiple guests to run simultaneously. For realtime-performant needs (mostly gaming, though some engineering tasks come to mind), you'll still want to avoid a virtualized host, but for many, many other tasks this is more than adequate. The primary limitation I've encountered is RAM utilization. As much of the stuff vendors provide and however cheaply, it's never enough. And it's the truly mundane stuff (browser sessions usually) that seem to suck the most RAM. > or even give one the ability to use your Desktop PC to it's full > advantage? For example, while I'm busy rendering a 3hour 3D scene in > Maya (running in Windows 7) I want to watch some moving in Linux - but > have both run in real-time. My PC is capable of it with 2x Corei7 > CPU's & 16GB RAM. - this is just an example. If you could reduce priority on the render, you'll likely be happier. Some resources (disk IO particularly) aren't fungible and may have impacts on virtualized environments though. This means swap as well. -- Dr. Ed Morbius, Chief Scientist / | Robot Wrangler / Staff Psychologist | When you seek unlimited power Krell Power Systems Unlimited | Go to Krell!