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Windows and Linux at one place

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

With the latest release of VirtualBox, Windows and Linux can be run together

simultaneously, and you don't even need to switch between the two. Using the

seamless Windows feature of VirtualBox, you can run two different operating

systems simultaneously on a single PC and you can use the applications of both

operating systems from the same desktop simultaneously.

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This has been made possible by the combined efforts of VirtualBox and

SeamlessRDP that is meant for seamless Windows support for rdesktop. The

rdesktop, ie, the remote desktop feature helps in creating X11 Window for each

Windows application that you will run from the host machine, further the

application that is running can be moved and resized.

In this article, we will show you how you can seamlessly work with Windows

and Linux together without switching Windows of virtual machine.

Prerequisites



Before we proceed, you should have the latest VirtualBox 1.5.2 installed on

your system. For this download VirtualBox 1.5.2 rpm for openSUSE 10.3 from the

link provided in the direct hit box. For installation first navigate to the

folder where you have downloaded the rpm file and then run the following

commands in the terminal.

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Direct Hit!

Applies To:

IT Managers



USP: Run Windows and Linux apps from the same destop GUI


Primary Link: www.virtualbox.org


Google Keywords: VirtualBox,SeamlessRDP

# rpm -ivh VirtualBox-1.5.2_25433 _openSUSE103-1.i586.rpm

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

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For running VirtualBox, navigate to Computer > more application and on the

new application section click on the 'Innotek VirtualBox' icon.

Integration



Now create a new virtual machine for Windows XP. You could also do it for

otther Windows versions also. Once the virtual machine for Windows has been

created, a few changes need to be done to the guest OS. Open the registry editor

from start > run >'regedit' and press enter. In the editor Window navigate to

the 'HKEY_CURRENT_ USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version >

Policies > Explorer' on the right panel create a new DWORD and call it

'NoDesktop' and set its value to 1. This is done so that the desktop of the

guest OS is not visible, only the guest taskbar and the guest application is

visible on the Linux desktop (ie host desktop).

You are now required to install VirtualBox's Guest additions for seamless

mouse movement between guest OS and host OS. For this click on the 'Install

Guest Addition,' under 'Device' menu item within the virtual machine running the

guest OS. Once this option is selected a virtual CDROM drive will appear on the

guest OS. Explore the virtual drive and click on the 'Install Guest Additions'

to initiate the installation, follow the in stallation instruction to finish the

installation process.

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Once the installation is complete properly shutdown the guest operating

system ie click on Start > Shutdown.

Reboot the guest operating system, and when it's fully ready, click on the

'Seamless Mode,' under 'Machine' menu. Finally you will see the Windows task bar

on the Linux desktop and you can now work seamlessly with both OSs.

Click on 'New' icon in the

virtual box Window to create a new virtual machine and further choose 'OS

Type' as 'Windows XP'
Specify the amount of RAM you

want to allocate to the virtual machine, for good results use 512 MB or

above
You have two options: the

first option will be good to go for as you never know how much space would

be required in future but if you want to strict space management then go for

second
After you have selected the

type of HDD image specify the size of the virtual HDD that would be used by

the Windows, making 10 GB HDD for Windows is recommended
After you have selected the

type of HDD image specify the size of the virtual HDD that would be used by

the Windows, making 10 GB HDD for Windows is recommended
With the seamless integrity

of Windows and Linux one can explore or even run applications simultaneously

from a single desktop environment.
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