Re: Easiest way of previewing a Linux distro

[Stephen Le <zeroion@gmail.com>]

On 4/16/05, Bob Alexander <bob@ngi.it> wrote:
> What is the best equivalent to do test installs of other Linux desktop
> oriented distros or even (shudder) Win operating systems ? The support
> for a graphic screen is a must of course and also some "virtual
> networking" enabling FTP/HTTP from the virtual machine.

What do you mean by "test installs?" Do you want to test the
installers of various distributions, or do you want to run various
distributions and test them? Or both?

I would recommend trying Xen
(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/) if you're interested
in testing various distributions. It's open-source, free, and very
fast. You can find pre-packaged disk images for various distributions
at http://www.kvadratrot.net/~xen. Furthermore, most UML disk images
will also work with Xen.

BTW, you'll have to use VNC to get graphical access to a distribution,
but that shouldn't be a major problem.

--Stephen Le