virtual machine

 

Create and install a virtual machine using Sun openxVM

I have always wanted to run a UNIX OS on my PC but I was always daunted by the thought that I will need to do the usual creation of a UNIX file-system partition and creating a dual booth system.  With tools like Partition Magic and Booth Magic you can do that easily but the trade off is that to be able to switch between OS, you will need to reboot your computer.

Also you will need to reformat a portion of your hard disk to another file system that is not compatible with your existing Windows OS (like the Linux X file system).  This is hard to manage on the hardware side and also you will not be able to use both OS at the same time on the same machine.

openvXM let’s you get away from the multi-boot hell. To get the software go tohttp://www.openxvm.org/ there you will see that this project is community supported with backing from Sun.  Sun recently has been active on “open-source” projects like OpenSolaris. Also, check out my previous post about VirtualBox, another free tool to create a virtual machine.

Some of the IT experts think they do this “free software” strategy to get a bigger market share like what they did with the programming platform Java.  Expect to have frequent updates to this software since many developers from Sun and the open source community are working to add more features and functionality.

Once you downloaded and installed the software, you can press CTRL-N to start the virtual machine creation: