[CentOS] Best way to virtualize Windows XP on Centos

[SilverTip257]

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 10:13 PM, Mark LaPierre <marklapier at aol.com> wrote:

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> On 02/19/2014 03:39 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Frank Cox
> > <theatre at melvilletheatre.com> wrote:



> >> My objective is to have Window run in a window on my desktop.  I
> >> don't want to dual-boot my computer.
> >>
> >> I was looking at virtualbox.  Is this the best approach?  I get
> >> the impression that there are special kernel modules that are
> >> required for virtualbox, but if I install dkms then that will be
> >> automatically handled for me whenever there is a kernel upgrade.
> >> Install dkms, install the virtualbox repo, install virtualbox
> >> rpms, set up image, done.  Is that all there is to it?  Would
> >> something other than virtualbox be better?
>

If you're only going to run your Windows VM as you need it, I'd suggest
just going with VirtualBox.
VirtualBox can be ran headless, but if you'll have Xorg on your desktop why
not use the GUI.


> >>
> >> Any recommendations or suggestions will be appreciated.
> >
> > Virtualbox will work, but if you want to stick to stock packages
> > and aren't concerned about running your images on other types of
> > hosts, try KVM first.
>

It's trivial to rsync a Linux host from P-to-P, P-to-V, V-to-P, or V-to-V.
[ That's P=physical hw and V=virtual hw ]

Other options other than rsync would be dd block copy (not as nice) and any
other number of backup tools.


> >
> > Yum groupinstall Virtualization "Virtualization Client"
> > "Virtualization Platform" "Virtualization Tools" might be overkill
> > but should have everything you need.  And then you'll find the GUI
> > under Applications ->System Tools -> Virtual Machine Manager.
> >
> > If you want to give the guest VM bridged access to your NIC, you
> > also need the bridge-utils package and have to move your host
> > network setup to the bridge device.
> >
>
> Just one small point to make here. KVM will not work on a 32 bit
> installation.  That's not all that important these days as most all
> installations are 64 bit.
>

KVM is not packaged for x86, only for the x86_64 architecture.

If you're working on hardware that is not 64-bit capable, you have fewer
options.
- Virtualbox, OpenVZ, Xen

And if your hardware doesn't have virtualization extensions ... well you've
got even fewer options.
- Hardware virt support _may be_ mandatory for Xen4CentOS (you'll find
para-virt mentioned on the CentOS wiki [1])
-- with Xen you could use paravirutalization (PV) or full virtualization
(HVM) [0]
-- I haven't ran any of the Xen4CentOS builds (since we've standardized on
KVM at work) [ but I really should! ^_^ ]

[0] http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Overview
[1] http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Xen/Xen4QuickStart

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Mike
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