O T: Been Given A Laptop, But ?

What would

No. Sorry dear.

Oh yes it can..

And hardware acceleration is not something that is absent from VMs either.

That's merely a matter of building e.g. a windows 'VGA CARD DRIVER' that offers advanced facilities to the VM client, and making sure it talks to the underlying accelerated hardware correctly via the Linux accelerated driver shims.

Shame that linux spoil chucker keeps putting the wrong words in your posts.

You really should try some games before you make comments like that. Very few games play better on consoles, especially the more interesting strategy games IME.

It's not just the driver though, is it? It's what the emulated hardware can do. So yes, it will do *some* things, but it will always be a few generations behind. If, for instance, nVidia release a new card that can do a new function called wongle-wangle, then all I need to do to perform a wongle-wangle on a native OS is install the card, and perform a wongle-wangle API call.

But for the VM, a third party needs to understand what a wongle-wangle is, and translate that into exactly what the hardware thinks a wongle-wangle is. So yes, anything is possible, but in practice, the VM emulated hardware is quite some way behind even today's mediocre hardware. Whatever the VM, it has to report *something* in device manager. And that something has it's limitations.

That said, I haven't reinstalled Chief Architect since I re-built this machine. So I may stick VMWare on it, and see what happens when I install it on that.

JW

Unless you pay, don't install VMware. It's screen interface is very slow.

Use virtual box, and if you want USB support, NOT the OSL - get it straight from Sun.

Seconded - I used to run vmware then switched to virtualbox, and the speed jump for graphics-heavy stuff was quite impressive.

Well I don't think linux can play bluray movies even in an emulator running real windows. But the linux people will just claim DVDs are good enough or that you should buy a consol to play them.

Please yourself and rant all you like but many happy hours have been wasted here over time with M/snot products!..

In article , John Whitworth scribeth thus

Still I know of quite a few people who are ticking away on Linux and happy with that..

Just in time - about to go get download. Cheers for that! :-)

Ooh yuk. I knew Oracle had acquired Sun, but that's the first time I've gone to

Well here I am again. I would just like to thank each and everyone of you for your advice and useful tips, but alas, nothing worked because there wasn't a backup of the Vista program on a hidden drive. There was however some programs which helped a little... Can't think what they were now.

I have installed Windows XP and the machine is all singing and dancing again.

With regards to Linux and it's variations. Personally I like PCLinusOS but like with all the different distros of Linux, the sound from any of my PC;s is never the same as under Windows. As Harry used to say, "I don't know why, but there it is". (Showing my age now).

I have a PC with PCLinuxOS on it which I dabble with from time to time....

Thanks again everyone.

Kindest regards,

Jim

Ubuntu can be a right pain to get the simplest things to work like... Adobe flash which is used on many sites. Getting the simplest of embedded videos to work can be impossible.

Lots of programs just don't come in a Linux variant. I ended up having to put my Dad's PC back to windows after 6 months of battling with Ubuntu 7.04 (I think it was). I completely removed even the windows recovery partition on my 7yr olds new laptop and installed Ubuntu 10.04 (Beta) which still has problems with some flash sites. Finally though to get all the programs running that wouldn't work under Wine (School stuff etc) I installed windows-XP (SP1) as a virtual machine under Ubuntu which now means he can do windows properly and safely and use Ubuntu for general web stuff. Best of both worlds and far safer. :¬))

Pete

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Er! whats difficult about going to the package manager and clicking install flashplugin-nonfree.

Thats all you need to do..

ditto VLC

Kids these days..........

Stick to flogging gym equipment, eh?

I'm not a complete computer numpty. Having been working with them since the days of DR dos and windows 3, also setting up a Freesco box and dabbling installing various BSD's via FTP install, but for Ubuntu to be a Windows "replacement" it needs to just work without having to fart about looking for things that shouldn't require going on an Easter Egg hunt.

im running 64bit Xubuntu and it likes it just fine