instant linux on winxp

[f0dder]

VMWare and such are very slow

-kalos (September 13, 2012, 04:42 PM)

That really depends on what you're trying to do, and what you expect.

Graphics will be slower, but not ungodly so - as long as you don't attempt gaming or video editing or the like, you'll be fine (and heck, recent versions of vmware have even added DirectX 9 support! - I think there's OpenGL support as well).

If you're running a "normal" guest OS, CPU will be just fine. I haven't tried running anything really performance intensive, but normal usermode stuff should run pretty much full speed - even with a CPU without hypervisor support, usermode stuff can run natively, only with some clever tricks involving kernelmode transitions.

Dunno what happens to intensive Disk I/O, but again - for normal stuff it shouldn't matter. OTOH, for special scenarios, you might even have better speed in a vm. For instance, the install part of both Linux and Windows at least seem faster to me under vmware. Whether it's because host OS caching is more efficient than the install-time caching of the guest or simply because you can do other things on your machine while installing, well... :-)

[Paul Keith]

It is worth noting that there will always be exceptions. In my experience, Google Chrome is aggressive both on a guest OS and a main OS when Virtualbox is running. Even when there's only one or two tabs but it could be an extension issue. (Still I have experienced this with the Chrome variants such as Chromium and Iron.)

There are some software too such as image editors where some editors would delay brush strokes regardless of which OS is hosting the program and then there are programs where regardless of which space is on it, it's as fast as it can be.

The issue of guest OS has been solved. It's in cloud based apps and HTML5. Google Chrome nowadays with the help of the web could even be considered a mini OS emulator while dodging the bulk of singular cloud OS sites through tricking the user into clicking apps that are bookmarks. Maturity is the only thing lacking but considering the time gap between cloud software and Linux software, the cloud has caught up much faster because of the business interest behind it. Of course behind the scenes, Linux would always be a step ahead with things such as hardware compatibility.

[40hz]

The issue of guest OS has been solved. It's in cloud based apps and HTML5.

-Paul Keith (September 14, 2012, 01:54 AM)

Well that's certainly good news! 

(Sorry. I just couldn't resist.  )