Very Computer

I'm interested in removing my Windows partition. The only thing I use it
for are scanning (I can't get my HP 2200c scanner working yet under Linux)  
and logging into my company's VPN once in a while and using Visual Studio
to change web content or SQL Enterprise Manager to change database
information? I know VMWare supports this kind of thing (although I'm not
so sure about the VPN), but it's REALLY expensive from what I've seen.  
What about Win4lin?

Preston

I have seen vmware and would not advice it.
Win4Lin is said to be not as good as VM but i have not seen it so cannot
judge. Either way i would not delete the win part, just don't use it if you
do not want to :-)
M

Quote:> I'm interested in removing my Windows partition. The only thing I use it
> for are scanning (I can't get my HP 2200c scanner working yet under
> Linux) and logging into my company's VPN once in a while and using
> Visual Studio to change web content or SQL Enterprise Manager to change
> database information? I know VMWare supports this kind of thing
> (although I'm not so sure about the VPN), but it's REALLY expensive from
> what I've seen. What about Win4lin?

> Preston

Win4Lin will probably handle the VPN and it will certainly run Visual
Studio but I doubt it will run your scanner. I use Win4Lin for running MS
Office, Acrobat, Xilinx tools for small devices (Win4Lin has a 64M memory
limit), Quickbooks 2002 (QB 2000 doesn't work very well), and
occasionally Internet Explorer. Generally Win4Lin works perfectly for most Windows
Applications but it has trouble with things like serial ports. I don't
know if it will handle USB devices that native Linux can't handle but I
doubt it. Performance wise Win4Lin is as fast as native Win98, VMware is
supposedly much slower.

Another thing to consider is that scanners are pretty inexpensive today
-- possibly less expensive than Win4Lin, and certainly less expensive
than VMware, unless you want a very high-end scanner. I'm not familiar
with the HP 2200c, so I don't know if this would qualify as one of the
expensive ones, but for scanning purposes, you might consider replacing
the scanner rather than running an emulator to get it working.

As for VPN, it depends on what VPN technology your company is using,
but some of them have support in Linux. Try doing a Web search, or if
necessary posting a query about it to comp.os.linux.networking. You
could also ask your company's network people (in fact, if their VPN is
properly administered, you'll probably have to).

--

http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux & multi-OS configuration

If your scanner is USB forget Win4Lin.  Go to
their web site and check compatibility.

Frank

One more thing to check is if you can just use secure shell to access
your company's network. If your company is a Unix shop then OpenSSH can
give the the ability to log in and run an X window back to your Linux
machine, that's what I do with all of my clients.

Why?  Seems like VMware is ideal for a situation like this.

I use it, and I like it because it lets me do Windows-only stuff without
having to reboot.  This means you can generally install ONLY the stuff you
need Windows for in VMware.  You don't need a browser, e-mail client, etc
etc installed under Windows because you have those programs running right
along-side VMware in Linux.  Windows is basically relegated to the status of
a shell for Windows-only utilities.

I don't start VMware unless I need Windows, but when I do start it, I keep
it open and tuck it away on an unused Linux desktop.  I can then switch back
and forth between Linux and Windows in full-screen mode -  CTRL-ALT-F8 takes
me to Windows, CTRL-ALT-F7 takes me back to Linux.

Only drawback is that you have to dedicate some RAM and disk space to run it
concurrently with Linux.  But, RAM and disk space are pretty cheap these
days.  It also uses about 5%-7% of CPU while inactive, which isn't bad.

As for the cost, it's only about $100, and you should be able to get your
company to pay for it if you're doing work stuff from home!

Another option - If you have a spare PC, you might consider installing
Windows on it and using VNC to connect to it.  VNC is a freeware equivalent
of remote control programs like pcAnywhere, but it allows you to control a
Windows client from Linux or vice versa.  I'm replacing pcaw on a number of
our machines with VNC.

As for using SQL Enterprise Manager - I bit the bullet and decided to do all
my database manipulation using a command-line SQL utility (the one that
integrates with the Netbeans Java IDE).  It requires some trips to the
documentation for the MS-specific stuff, but it's been quite usable, and I
like having independence from the MS database utilities.

Quote:> As for the cost, it's only about $100, and you should be able to get
> your company to pay for it if you're doing work stuff from home!

My mistake - I just checked the cost and it's about $300.  That does seem a
bit steep for personal use, but may be justifiable to your company.

Well, except that I own this scanner, need Windows SOMEWHERE anyway, so
I might as well keep it.

Quote:> As for VPN, it depends on what VPN technology your company is using,
> but some of them have support in Linux. Try doing a Web search, or if
> necessary posting a query about it to comp.os.linux.networking. You
> could also ask your company's network people (in fact, if their VPN is
> properly administered, you'll probably have to).

I think there is a version of the software (Cisco, in our case), I
believe. That's beside the point, though. I still need access to Visual
Studio and SQL Server Enterprise Manager over the VPN, not to mention
Outlook in certain situations.

Preston

Why does it use CPU even when not running?

Quote:> As for the cost, it's only about $100, and you should be able to get your
> company to pay for it if you're doing work stuff from home!

That's not what it says on their site. On their site the cost is $300. I
could buy one of those boxes from Walmart for that much and drop Win2k
on it.

Quote:> As for using SQL Enterprise Manager - I bit the bullet and decided to do all
> my database manipulation using a command-line SQL utility (the one that
> integrates with the Netbeans Java IDE).  It requires some trips to the
> documentation for the MS-specific stuff, but it's been quite usable, and I
> like having independence from the MS database utilities.

That's cool that that works. Unfortunately won't work for me, though, as
we still have code in ASP/Visual Source Safe so I need Visual Interdev.

Preston

If you "suspend" your VMware process when you're not using it, it won't
use any cpu cycles until you resume it again.  This also saves you the
tedium of waiting for the virtual machine to boot up and load Windows.  It
takes about 10 seconds to resume a suspended session on my machine vs
about 4 minutes for booting up the virtual machine from scratch (PII-350
with 384MB RAM).  

--

SMP helps with VMWare too. With two CPUs, VMWare can take one CPU, and
everything else goes on the other. Responsiveness is reduced a bit, but not
quite as much as with only one CPU.

Fast disks can help too. I keep all my VMWare images on SCSI RAID 0, and
can get around 16MB/s (it's an old card), and can restore in under three
seconds. Suspending takes a bit longer, but never takes more than 10
seconds.

--

Quote:>>Only drawback is that you have to dedicate some RAM and disk space to run it
>>concurrently with Linux.  But, RAM and disk space are pretty cheap these
>>days.  It also uses about 5%-7% of CPU while inactive, which isn't bad.

> If you "suspend" your VMware process when you're not using it, it won't
> use any cpu cycles until you resume it again.  This also saves you the
> tedium of waiting for the virtual machine to boot up and load Windows.  It
> takes about 10 seconds to resume a suspended session on my machine vs
> about 4 minutes for booting up the virtual machine from scratch (PII-350
> with 384MB RAM).  

I don't mind spending the 5-7% to have it immediately available, so I
just keep it running.

.on Fri, 22 Feb 2002 23:48:22 +0100, "Preston Crawford"

Quote:> I'm interested in removing my Windows partition. The only thing I use it
> for are scanning (I can't get my HP 2200c scanner working yet under
> Linux) and logging into my company's VPN once in a while and using
> Visual Studio to change web content or SQL Enterprise Manager to change
> database information? I know VMWare supports this kind of thing
> (although I'm not so sure about the VPN), but it's REALLY expensive from
> what I've seen. What about Win4lin?

> Preston

..if that scanner is paralell port and you have both a vacant pc
and a wintendo licence, rig those up.  You may also be able to get
people help you get your scanner supported.

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-)

  Scenarios always come in sets of three:
  best case, worst case, and just in case.

Preston:

I use win4lin in a production environment.  I run a PII/550 SMP box with
gobs of ram (900MB +/-).  Win4lin works like a charm; the latest version
uses a virtual NIC so you can do anything you want network wise.  The NIC
has its own IP address.  In my case, my linux box has a static IP, my
win4lin session is dynamic.

Win4lin was really designed as a light-weight app, compared to vmware.
The big limiation of win4lin is that it relies on the underlying linux to
provide everything other than networking - sound, parallel ports, serial
ports, usb, etc.  If it won't work with linux, then you can't get at it
with win4lin.  Also, speed on the ports is very poor, since it has to go
through the windows-linux hardware emulation layer and then through the
linux drivers.

It is very fast - I can reboot my win4lin session in less than a minute.
For all practical purposes, it is an X windows app, not a separate
virtual machine.  Some claim it's faster than native windows - in my case
that's true because I run SCSI RAID which is much faster than windows 98
could do.  It also more stable, though my particular setup has a memory
leak forcing a reboot of the win session every week or so (then again, a
windows 98 session would not stay up for a week!)

The 64MB limit is sort of bogus.  While windows thinks it only has 64 MB,
win4lin keeps the swap file in memory, letting linux page it out todisk
as needed.  Result is that practically, you have fast performance up
until you run out of physical RAM, at which point the machine grinds to a
slow stop.

Anyway, highly recommended if all you need is simple access to windows
networking and windows apps, but your scanner won't work.

--Yan