Summary for quick review, understanding & implementation: (your post is hard to scan quickly for info)
- Get a PC (with >1 GB RAM)
- Install Windows XP SP2 (Vista untested)
- Install VMWare (workstation or server)
- Install Ubuntu/Your flavor of unix in VMWare
- Setup VMWare networking correctly (How?)
- Install X-server for windows (xming)
- Setup your win X-server to use VM ubuntu (How?) (this is the innovative part!)
- Install KDE Kicker? to launch apps from windows
-vixay
RAM: It will work with under one meg of memory -- just not well enough to use full time (IMHO). Before I upgraded to one gig, I ran Kubuntu Dapper Drake in a 256 meg VM with 768 megs of RAM. Windows graphics programs had trouble. I expect any heavy ram user Windows program would.
Networking: "How" depends on your setup and your choices. For mine (wired home network with a D-Link Router), I set up bridged networking in the VM. I ran the VM and booted Linux so D-Link would get the VM's MAC address and assign it a dynamic IP. I then went into D-Link's Admin area and associated that IP permanently with the VM's MAC address (making it effectively static without having to manually fiddle with the Linux networking setup -- linux is still using out of the box dhcp, it just always get a fixed IP address assigned by the router). There are a least a dozen different ways to set something like this up with VMWare.
[X-server setup] This sounds hard, but it really isn't. You create a shortcut to Xming with the long line of paramaters I listed (put a space after the ....exe and paste them in. Drag the shortcut to your startup folder so it starts with Windows and it is ready to go.
So is that all correct? Any better ideas? or want to flesh it out more... to make it like a guide... 
Pretty much: It does need fleshing out and alternatives explained. I'll be working on that for my new XPLinux web site -- and posting an condensed update here.
Anyway after reading your post i revisited powerpro & tlb...
didn't see anything very useful with TLB... maybe i just don't know how to use it or how it is better than the default quick launch
For most people, it may not be better. TLB is just far more configurable that putting a folder in quicklaunch. I would not like my system as much without it. Your mileage may vary, of course.
as for powerpro, it interferes with stroke it... and it's cumbersome and complicated to use... i am sure it's great once setup correctly, but setting it up correctly takes ages!
LOL. Powerpro is one of the most complex Windows utility programs around. I really don't notice the complexity much as I started using the program with the old Windows 3.1 version (then called Stiletto) about 15 years ago. The feature set and complexity has increased slowly over the years, making it much easier to learn. This does not help someone just picking it up today, however.
Feel free to take this post, expand on it and put it in the 1st post
Thank you! I will do that ASAP.
Also i had a question about your setup then.... where do you install the applications you want to use? in the VM or windows?
Linux programs are installed in the VM. You can run synaptic in Windows (via the VM) to install just about anything you like.
and what is the real benefit? can you work on a project (the same files) using both unix and win then? (cygwin can)
Using VMWAre Workstation you easily can. I have both of my disk drives set up as shared. From Linux they show up as /mnt/hgfs/win and /mnt/hgfs/old. I can easily work on a file stored on my real drives with a Linux program. I do it all the time. (I don't know if VMWare server has this ability.)
The main advantages over Cygwin is the huge number of Linux programs available for immediate use and the fact that they are running on a real Linux system.
