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Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux

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19 pointsmarrone5 comments

It is basically very similar to Parallels for Mac though I am running it on Ubuntu, and it is free. It works quite well.

I use it solely for web developement and testing exlporer and other browsers on windows, and was actually able to get Windows to access my lamp server running locally on Ubuntu by using NAT and modifying the hosts file to point my named virtual hosts to 10.0.2.2.

So if anyone has being dual-booting for the same purpose, or using VMware, this is an excellent alternative.

I've been using VirtualBox OSE for running XP on my OpenSUSE desktop, completely unaware of this special display mode, so I'll have to give that a go. So far, I've just switched the VirtualBox window to fullscreen mode on a spare virtual KDE desktop, so it's actually quite usable even then.

I have to say I'm pretty impressed with VirtualBox so far. I've had all sorts of trouble with Xen in the past, so I'm slowly phasing those VMs out in favour of VirtualBox. I prefer Xen conceptually, but it's just too damn flaky for the real world.

One VirtualBox tip: using virtualisation instructions on recent CPUs seems to be off by default, and it's worth enabling for the speedup if you've got the hardware.

As for networking, I'm using bridging, (see e.g.: [http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Advanced_Networking_Linux]) so the virtual machine is an equal peer in my LAN.

Im no networking expert, but just modifying the window hosts file to point my named virtual hosts to 10.0.2.2 achieves exactly what I am after: the ability to edit my files using VIM in Ubuntu, and see the changes take effect immediately Windows side.

I didnt got the 'seamless' route suggested in the article, instead I only went as far as installing the GuestAdditions which solved a few minor nitpicks, and everything is perfect now.

So... that's like a compatibility layer for viruses?

Ooh, thanks for the post, I find this to be sexy.

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