Wish me luck, am going to install Fedora 10 on this system:

[Deja Q]

* Asus P5Q Deluxe w 8GB RAM and Intel Q9650 CPU
* 300GB Seagate SATA HD (am not risking dual boot with Vista on the Velociraptor just yet)
* Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe
* nvidia GTX260

With WIN4LIN v5 -- allows fully seamless Windows compatibility ("floating apps"), and does so in a way that prevents registry bloat and system slowdown like what happens on regular WIndows systems

http://www.linux.com/feature/139471
:woohoo:

http://www.win4lin.net/content/

OMG, to be a Linux user again. It's like a relationship, except I'm having this!!


(Yes, I will be wearing this on Monday)

[RoyGBiv]

1. Win4Lin ...

Have you actually used this yet? I'll be interested in your thoughts.

I use VirtualBox and have found it to be exceptional, especially the latest releases as Sun seems to have ramped up development and support. In fact, the description of Win4Lin makes it sound a lot like VirtualBox, right down to the configuration. But the one thing it is missing is floating apps.

And I wish you luck. I never liked Fedora, for reasons I finally tracked down to SELinux. But by the time I figured out that as the problem, I'd moved on. Haven't tried it since version 8, I think.

[Deja Q]

2. I'd used win4lin in the past...

The older versions (Win 9x) were great. Then they had the Pro editions, which used Win2k and XP. Until v3, it was not usable.

I abandoned win4lin pro after v4 because it was still slow and unwieldy to use.

That review of win4lin 5 really piqued my interest in Linux again -- and given the seamless features, is worth the lost once I get past the trial period. Compared to WINE, win4lin should allow nearly full compatibility. (I've used WINE in the past and found it easy to corrupt; it was a pain.)

I still need to install win4lin, but if that article is 100% true to v5's improvements... oh yeah!!! :party:

virtualbox is great (free) and fast, but win4lin was always lofty with its ideas. I'm gratified they survived to v5, as I might be purchasing a license soon... or three; I've got a couple other PCs that would benefit from replacing Vis(hi)ta. :D

I used to be a SUSE guy myself, but for each new release they change system file locations -- people had troubles with the X-Fi sound driver, as did I when I put on SUSE 11.1 a couple weeks ago. I eyed Ubuntu except it didn't come with a firewall. I've not used Fedora, but am hoping for a good experience.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Wine ...

... is a nice base on which to build. By itself it is, imo, fodder for those who like to play with stuff but don't actually need to get a lot of work done while using it. And that may be a conceited opinion, but there it is. Aside from the games for which I need Windows, I only use Windows apps when I'm doing something specific I have to do and have no urge to screw around with things all that much.

SuSE's implementation of Pulseaudio is a problem, but as I've discovered from trial and error, the real problem is with ALSA drivers that have issues in them along with the Suse team not testing this thoroughly enough and implementing workarounds or, better, fixing the problems. These weren't exposed as well using ESOUND or other systems.

As for Ubuntu, it does come with a firewall because the firewall is part of any base Linux system. It's not configured by default, which I do find a bit odd considering the target audience, but it only takes a second to come up with a basic "drop everything I didn't ask for" rule set.

[Deja Q]

4. Quite

Especially re: sound issues, Creative Labs has been disappointing and they're not helping much for the ALSA folks either. :( Still, it's been said onboard audio quality has improved over the last couple of years...

Thx for the info re: Ubuntu and its firewall. I'm still going to stick with Fedora, which may or may not be so great...

I'm installing a windows XP guest right now. Because I installed Win4Lin Pro 5.0 and not 5.5, I'm stuck with 1.1GB of RAM for the client. Once I install 5.5, I can use 2GB of RAM. With XP as the base OS with half the services disabled, I'll still get good response out of Photoshop. Probably. Installation time is _slow_. Of course, I opted to install Fedora with 32-bit & PAE. I know Win4Lin has a 64-bit version, yet from what I've read and please correct me if I'm wrong but there are a few incompatibilities depending on the 32-bit software running in the 64-bit environment. Caught in the middle either way, perhaps.

I will be tempted to try Virtualbox and forego the seamlessness if need be. SInce the reboot from the initial install, the performance for part II of the XP install has, so far, been rapid - almost instant, which scared the boobahs out of me. I dare say disk writes in Win4Lin are far slower than disk reads, so once the install is done things should be a lot snappier. Part II is still proceeding and it's only been one minute, and the setup timer that said "done in 39 minutes" already went to 37. So things may not be as horrendous as I'm making them out to be.

More to follow, but I hope X-Fi Titanium PCIe support - proper support - comes down the pike. It's a great card...

[Deja Q]

5. Part II finished

Starting part 3.

Definitely a HUGE improvement in disk speed.

More to follow.

[Deja Q]

6. Upgraded to v5.5. If you buy or do a trial, install KVM first before Win4Lin 5.5...

This enables hardware emulation and is much faster still. :9

More to follow.

[Deja Q]

7. Setting the XP display to the same color depth as Linux's desktop (24-bit) helps immensely...

Am now going to patch the thing and look for Black Viper's configuration site to turn off unwanted services.

So far, this is just about real-time fast. Haven't toyed with the seamless floating app capability yet... need to install the apps too. :D

[RoyGBiv]

9. Thanks for this report ...

I'm sure you've found it by now, but just in case ... Black Viper is here: http://www.blackviper.com/

His old URL wasn't descriptive, but he changed it to that some time ago.

[Deja Q]

10. Thanks - after installing XP SP3 'safe' settings and disabling themes:

The OS uses 70MB.

I might re-enable everything because of networking concerns with the host, but 70MB is sweetness.

[Deja Q]

11. Next time, I will MANUALLY disable things instead of doing a direct BV regedit:

I screwed up networking (oh, Server, Workstation, and Computer Browser services were enabled).

It's not a big thing, as I'm in testing purposes anyway (and post OS-install has shown a very fast emulated system).

One other issue: Somewhere, somehow, I broke the hardware virtualization. Unless Win4Lin had. I reinstalled the KVM module, but have not yet re-tested. Software emulation isn't that much slower anyway, but having said that I want the full 2GB quantity. Mind you, on a quad core, I'd only notice the difference under some circumstances.

I will work with Win4Lin where I can, once I've narrowed the issues.

I will also try VirtualBox for the sake of it, which I shall do tonight.

[Deja Q]

12. VirtualBox caught and informed me WHY the KVM hardware virtualization part was broken...

This I will document and get back to Win4Lin on at some point.

[RoyGBiv]

13. Why was it broken?

Or borken, as I am prone to type for some reason.

We need more of this ... live "trial" reports. I tend to take notes of when I'm doing something like this. I discover in later stages that I need to know things that were apparent when I first didn't but which I've forgotten during subsequent steps.

[Deja Q]

14. I clicked on the 'details' button but nothing came about...

I recompiled, rebooted, and then came into a new problem: With PAE enabled, I still ran out of space so I reformatted with 64-bit Fedora. :dunce:

Once the updates are installed and rebooted I'll try again.

I dare say Firefox runs a tad slower, but then I'm downloading a ton of system updates too.

Still, it was worth a try... :D

[RoyGBiv]

8. 64/32 ...

Right now it strikes me as a 6 of 1, half dozen of the other sort of deal and all comes down to what you, specifically, do.

I go with the 64 bit because I do get performance increases in several things I do. Having said that, I get no performance boost at all in most things because the applications don't take advantage of the environment as they could. Developers, it seems, don't really create two versions, one 32, the other 64. They create one that can be compiled in either and the enhancments possible with the 64 bit environment aren't utilized. Using transcode is an example. I get only a marginal performance increase in the 64 bit environment, and this is one of those things that could benefit greatly.

Running 32 bit software in the 64 bit environment can lead to issues, so you're not off the mark there.

Creative Labs is a PITA. They were actually making noise a few years back about suing over the reverse engineered ALSA drivers. I don't think that went anywhere though.

Regarding the firewall for general informational purposes, the Linux firewall IPTABLES is built into the kernel, so you can't not have it. But you have to create a rule set for it to function. That is, the default is "allow everything," and to change that you have to tell it to function otherwise. Most major disros do this as a part of the initial install. For some reason Ubuntu doesn't (or didn't ... I don't know about recent releases).

[Deja Q]

15. Agreed. I ultimately

moved to the 64-bit version of Fedora because PAE wouldn't cut it for virtual machines.

64-bit Fedora + Virtualbox setting up a 32-bit XP guest went through perfectly.

VirtualBox is incompatible with KVM, which Win4Lin uses. :(

After moving to 64-bit, I had to manually enable 3D effects so my cairo-dock 3rd party icon launcher would show transparency.

And Flash won't work in Firefox 3.0.6. :( Not sure why, but I will keep working at it.

VirtualBox's performance is a tad faster (post-install), even though it does not have the ability to run seamless apps... and that unlike Win4Lin, Virtualbox doesn't have a (paraphrased) 'settings discard' mode that stores changes in a bogus registry that gets dumped at shutdown -- and summarily prevents bloat of the registry and system performance.

Actually, I just noticed VirtualBox **HAS** a seamless mode too. I will play around and see what sort of limits it has; if I can get around needing to run EXPLORER.EXE and just the pertinent apps, that will save system resources (even on a quad core with 8GB, anything helps)

Still, Win4Lin's integration (it installs what it needs and bypasses a tedious XP setup) is a plus, as is the aforementioned settings discard mode that keeps everything performance fresh... then again, not being limited to 2GB on a flaky KVM subsystem, Virtualbox is still the better choice. I can fathom how Win4Lin will eventually "get there" and they are very close. And the $50 will be wholly worth it at that point.