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Running Windows under Linux

Most people use computers with some version of Windows running on them. This is environmentally unfriendly, because up-to-date versions of Windows such as XP, and even more so, Vista, need an up-to-date computer. But most of the things people do with their computers are undemanding and can be done on five-year old computer using Linux, the main thing being to make sure it has plenty of memory - about 512 megabytes.

Sometimes Windows can't be avoided and an effective way of running it is as a virtual machine inside Linux, using VMware. Both Linux and VMware are available free of charge from the internet but I have found installing VMware is tricky.

The key to a trouble-free installation of VMware is to use a Linux distribution with all the development packages, including the kernel source, and to install all of them and update them on-line before installing VMware. That way the installation will go smoothly.

I have used a variety of Linux distributions but Open Suse seems to be the best for what I do. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are also good and popular ones. It is best to install these from the "alternate" CDs rather than the "Live" CD.

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