plex86, VMWare, & other emulators (was Re: Desktop productivity with Debian GNU/LINUX)
on Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 12:59:24AM +0100, Rohan Nicholls (rohan.nicholls@informaat.nl) wrote:
> * Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> [030125 00:17]:
> > on Sat, Jan 25, 2003 at 12:54:46AM +1100, Russell (rjshaw@iprimus.com.au) wrote:
> > > Rohan Nicholls wrote:
> >
> > > >I have to say that I took over my windows partition, and now run
> > > >win2k in an emulator for the times I need to for work, and it runs as
> > > >fast, with a few trivial exceptions, in the emulator as it did on its
> > > >own, and for the rest of my life I get to run on a fast responsive
> > > >and endlessly configurable system.
> > >
> > > I've got win2k. What is this emulator?
> >
> > I suspect it's VMWare: http://www.vmware.com/
>
> You are right there, and there is plex86, but I have not explored that
> fully yet, but intend to.
plex86 is an x86 hardware emulator. That is, it provides an x86 system,
entirely within software. The primary advantage is that it's very
portable. The primary disadvantage is that it's painfully slow.
VMWare by contrast is a hardware virtualization. It virtualizes the
underlying HW. This provides an extensive performance boost, but at the
cost of portability (even were the source available).
Other options (Win4Lin, Crossover Office, WINE) are OS runtimes
(Win4Linx IIRC) or binary API compatibility layers. Which goes to show
there's more than one way to emulate skinning a cat.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Geek for hire: http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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