Run other Oses on your pc

There are occasions where you probably want to run a different os without really installing it. If you are running windows you probably would like to refresh your linux skills but dislike the idea of installing it on one of your partitions. The guys at wolphination explain an easy way to run on os inside your real os.

All you need are three ingredients. First, you need the free vmware player, then you need os.zip which is used to install the operating system and finally you need a iso file or a cd / dvd of an operating system.

Installation is simple as well:

Install vmware player and unzip os.zip. Change to the unzipped directory and open os.vmx in a text editor.

Change the following lines:

memsize = “512″
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso�

Edit the memsize line with an amount of ram that you want to provide for vmware and the second operating system. For most Linux distros 256 should be enough, make sure you leave enough for windows. The second line is the location of your .iso file. change it accordingly. If you have it on a cd or dvd edit the following three lines

ide1:0.present = “TRUE�
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso�
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-image�

into

ide1:0.present = “TRUE�
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect�
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw�

Start Vmplayer and open the os.vmx, as soon as you see the starting screen press ESC to enter the list of bootable devices. Select Cd-Rom and hit enter. The Os should load just fine and you are ready to go.

The vmware site offers some prebuild virtual machines.

[tags]linux, vmware, operating system, os, os.zip, run linux windows[/tags]