On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 01:10:07PM +0200, Michael Hanke wrote:
<snip>
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 09:57:12AM +0100, Alle Meije Wink wrote:
<snip>
> > If you run it off a live CD you can also just mount your Windows drive.
<snip>
> Although you are right that you can simply mount the local drives from
> within the Live system it should be just as convenient when using a VM.
> The samba server needs to be configured only once in the VM master copy
> and everybody automatically benefits from it.
<snip>
> As a next step I want to try VirtualBox instead of VMWare. I'd really
> like to have a free software solution.
And it works great. My subjective impression is that it works faster and
requires less configuration.
But there are two really exciting features: 1. It can run 'headless' and
the graphics output can be accessed via RDP. This means that the VM can
run on some powerful machine and the users can access it remotely.
2. It supports 'shared folders'. This means that you can mount local
drives/folders on the host machine inside the VM -- even without a
networking setup. This make the Samba server obsolete.
I gave it a try (again with Debian etch) and it runs smoothly (including
the GuestAdditions for keyboard/mouse capture).
As a thought: One can even fully integrate FSL into the windows desktop
by running a headless VM. The user needs to install the Xming X server
for windows (free software -- easy installation). One can then connect
to the VM via SSH (e.g. using putty -- free software; no installation).
FSL can then use the local x server and it looks like a native win32
program. This would also reduce the size of the VM (approx 200 MB) as
the X server inside the VM becomes obsolete.
Cheers,
Michael
--
GPG key: 1024D/3144BE0F Michael Hanke
http://apsy.gse.uni-magdeburg.de/hanke
ICQ: 48230050
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