VMware and Linux at Southampton Solent University 4


Southampton Solent University is in the process of installing VMware onto its network, which will enable Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems to run on the same PC at the same time.

From an Educational standpoint this will give students there the opportunity to learn, use, compare, and evaluate different operating systems, applications, and programming languages without the need for Dual Boot software or separate PC’s each dedicated to any particular operating system.

There will be free demonstrations available of VMware running on Southampton Solent University PC’s for those attending the OSSG Open Source Software Quality in Practice event there on 27th October 2005.

I would be interested to know what others think about the advantages or otherwise of using VMware with Open Source Software in an Educational environment.

Mark Elkins


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4 thoughts on “VMware and Linux at Southampton Solent University

  • ajehals
    VMware and Linux at Southampton Solent University

    I’ve used VMWare (on Debian) to run windows and it worked great. Basically I used it for those applications that there are no usable OSS alternatives for, primarily MSVisio, and to proof exports from OpenOffice before mailing them out and finding issues with formatting etc..

    I’ve now use QEMU which also works very well (and feels quicker but I cant prove it!).

    The interesting thing with QEMU is the multiple processor emulation (SPARC and PPC etc..) although I’ve only used it to emulate Darwin 7 on PPC, which was interesting but not all that useful.

    It seems to be a good way of running Windows on Linux and vice versa, and I might look at VMWare Player now that it is free, although it depends on the license…

    I using VMWare in this manner is a good way of making OSS available, and if it lets people contrast compare, and more importantly fiddle and break things then its definitely a positive move (assuming your running Windows PC’s with Linux/Solaris etc.. VM’s).

    What Id be interested to know is what OSS Operating systems you intend to run, just out of curiosity.

  • markelkins
    VMware and Linux at Southampton Solent University

    Andrew

    Thanks for the reply. I originally posted this item about 6 months ago so have been in contact with Southampton Solent University IT Admin/Support to get an update. They may reply to you direct, but I am told that the operating systems being run using VMWare Client are Microsoft Windows, Suse/Novell Linux, and Redhat Linux.

    The plan back in October was to also use the server version of VMWare.

    If I get a chance soon I’ll download and test drive VMWare Player at http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

    On looking at your homepage I notice that you are interested in ‘…getting opensource software to run on exceptionally old hardware’. Therefore you might be interested in my discussion article in “Business Models and OSS” about “Open Source Software Hardware Requirements and Environmental Waste”.

    Cheers

    Mark

  • markelkins
    VMware and Linux at Southampton Solent University

    Andrew

    Thanks for the reply. I originally posted this item about 6 months ago so have been in contact with Southampton Solent University IT Admin/Support to get an update. They may reply to you direct, but I am told that the operating systems being run using VMWare Client are Microsoft Windows, Suse/Novell Linux, and Redhat Linux.

    The plan back in October was to also use the server version of VMWare.

    If I get a chance soon I’ll download and test drive VMWare Player at http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

    On looking at your homepage I notice that you are interested in ‘…getting opensource software to run on exceptionally old hardware’. Therefore you might be interested in my discussion article in “Business Models and OSS” about “Open Source Software Hardware Requirements and Environmental Waste”.

    Cheers

    Mark