Re: I want to migrate to Linux


Can I test a VM with 512MB or is that hopeless?
Probably, especially with Win98 which will run in a small amount. For
testing purposes I'd set the VM's memory space to 128M, you might be able
to set it lower to something like 64M. It's been a very long time since
I've dealt with Win98 but as I recall 64M was probably the typical memory
size of a PC in the days when W98 was current.

I am very fuzzy on this VM thing. Will I install WIN98 in VM like I
would a freshly formated drive? So Linux will supply drivers so WIN98
can use my hardware? If so then that is excellent and when the day comes
to build new PCs I could still run WIN98SE and not need any drivers. At
that point I'll be able to build anything I want and run anything I
want.

VMware has this very straight forward GUI that allows you to create a VM.
When you create the VM you can have it use the real CDROM in your system
or you can attach an ISO as the CDROM. After you have created the VM all
you do is boot it and it will operate exactly as a real PC would. The
virtual BIOS will look for a boot sector on the virtual disk (which you
defined when you created the VM). It won't find a boot sector so it will
look for a CDROM to boot off of. It will find your Win98 install CD and
then boot the installer. You will then do an install just as you would if
you were doing it on a real machine. The reboots that Windows requires
during an install are a lot faster than a real reboot so the install
process will be faster than it would be on real hardware.

After you have done the install and all of the updates to the Win98 OS
you'll install all of your software. Once again you do this exactly as
you would on a real machine. When you have finished setting up the VM in
the way that you want it you should save a copy somewhere so that you can
restore it if it gets broken. Also you can copy that VM to another system
and use it there. Once you have created your Win98 VM you never need to
do it again. If you put the VM on another system all you will have to do
is change it's IP address (assuming that you are using static IPs) and
it's hostname so they won't clash with each other on your network. You
make these changes in Win98 exactly as you would if they were running on
real hardware.

One more thing. The Windows desktop is displayed in a VMWare console
window. The desktop gets autosized if you change the console window size.
Gnome supports multiple virtual desktops. You can flip between desktops
by clicking on a little windowpane icon on your toolbar. What I usually
do is put my Windows desktop in it's own Gnome desktop so that it doesn't
interfere with my Linux apps. However you can also have Linux apps in the
same desktop if you want which is frequently convenient. For example you
might want to cut and paste something between the Linux app and the
Windows app (VMware supports cutting and pasting between Linux and
Windows).


Is SAMBA a file management tool? So I will keep the files I create with
WIN apps on a drive other than the one that holds my apps? Will the
files I create with my WIN apps still be readable by a WIN only PC?

SAMBA is the Windows networking server in *nix. You can share Linux
directories with Windows systems (real or virtual) and you can access
shared Windows folders from Linux. You can also share printers. Linux
distros all contain a SAMBA configuration GUI but I prefer using Webmin.
Webmin is a browser based administration tool that works on most Linux
and Unix systems. After you have Webmin installed on your system you
access it from any browser on your network by accessing port 10000 on
that system, i.e. https://machinename:10000. The Webmin modules are much
better thought out than any of the distro based admin GUIs. They are
pretty self explanatory, and they will also allow you to see at a glance
which options you have available. The other good thing about Webmin is
that it's common to every distro so if you decide to have Ubuntu on one
box and CentOS on another you can administer them identically. If you use
the distros tools then you will be faced with a different set of admin
GUIs on every distro. Redhat, Ubuntu, Suse all have fairly easy to use
GUIs and they all accomplish the same things, but they are all different.
Webmin works on all of them. You can get Webmin from,

http://www.webmin.com

On Redhat and Ubuntu systems it's a one click install. You click on the
download and the package installer will pop up automatically when the
download is done.

.

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