[Cialug] Next AmesLUG topic

Tue Sep 14 17:05:55 CDT 2010

I'd love to get a better understanding of VMs.  Until just recently I thought you had to run a Linux or Windows or some other OS on the hardware and then a VM on top of that and then a guest OS on top of that. I now believe that my understanding may not be correct.  I didn't realize that you could run Windows and Linux simultaneously under a VM either.

So here's a list of questions that could be addressed:

Why would you chose one VM over another?
	What are the strong & weak points of the various VMs?
What do they cost to install?  Purchase price / disk space / etc.
What do they cost to run?  CPU / Memory / etc.
How do you install it?  Guest OS and then VM or vice versa
Any special considerations to installing an OS as a guest rather than a base OS?
How do you start a VM with a guest OS?
How do you run multiple guests of the same OS?
How do you run multiple guests of different OSs?
How do you divide up the disk space for the different guests?
	Can the VM run off the C drive and guest 1 think that the D drive is its C and guest 2 think that the E drive is its C?
	Can the C drive be partitioned and a different partition given to each guest as its C drive?
	How can files be shared between guests if needed?
How do you switch the video and keyboard between guests or do you need to have one for each guest?  If so, how do you connect multiple videos and keyboards to a computer?
How do you maintain the VM?  Install patches, update apps, etc.
How do you maintain the guest OSs?
How do I let the system know that the USB device plugged into that port needs to be connected to guest X?
Can I switch a USB port between guests as necessary, or once it's assigned is it stuck, until I reboot, forever, etc. ?
Are there any special considerations for living in the country and only having dial up access?

And then there is the ultimate question, what don't I know about VMs that I should know?

Or is there a book that I should be reading instead of tying up meeting time?

As you can see, there is a lot about VMs that I don't know yet.  OK, there's not much that I actually do know.  It's quite possible that this can't all be covered in a single meeting.

So what would I like to get to?  I'd like to set up a computer to use as a DVR, I'm thinking Myth TV, and use it for other things as well.  As far as I know however, the Bible study software I use only runs under Windows.  I scan the lessons from the teacher's manual, run them through OCR, cut the recognized text and paste it into a Word document, and add to it with information I glean from the Bible Study software.  The OCR software only runs on Windows too.  I assume I can scan with Linux and I know word processing is available under Linux.  I also use the scanner to scan slides, negatives, and pictures to make DVDs of images for my siblings so nobody is fighting over the originals.  When doing slides the scanner is really slow, 6 - 10 minutes for 4 slides, so it would be nice to feed slides to it occasionally while watching TV.  That's not all bad, as if there is a sizeable group in the photo it can take a minute or two to write the caption with everybody's name.

I'd love to have been able to get in on the meetings the DSM group has as they are much closer, but since our church has prayer meeting on Wednesday evenings I'm not available then to attend group meetings, so I drive to Ames for the meetings there on Thursdays.

Murray McKee
Operating Systems Engineer
WFFIS - Wells Fargo Financial Information Systems 
800 Walnut Street
MAC F4030-037
Des Moines, IA 50309-3605
WORK (515)557-6127 Cell (515) 343-6630  FAX (515) 557-6046 
MurrayMcKee at WellsFargo.com 
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-----Original Message-----
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Nathan C. Smith
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 3:38 PM
To: 'Central Iowa Linux Users Group'
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Next AmesLUG topic

* Cloud Computing
* Privacy
* Ethics
* Security
* Are computers still relevant in this age of portable devices and smart phones?
* Are IT people still relevant in an age of dumbed-down applications and bifurcated Software as a service?
* Is Linux still relevant?
* Why did the age of the Linux Desktop never arrive? (or did it?)

-----Original Message-----
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Michael Standfest
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 3:34 PM
To: cialug at cialug.org
Subject: [Cialug] Next AmesLUG topic

Does anyone have any good ideas for a future Ames LUG topic?

As Matt and Joanna are hopefully going to be busy soon with their new offspring (after all, they need to teach their child CW at a young age).  I'm trying to step up and help out a bit more with the club.

If you have any ideas for a future topic, please speak up.  Unless I/we hear anything soon, I'll plan on a virtual machine demo and discussion next time.  I seem to remember some comments and questions about what exactly one is and how to use it.  Maybe a few folks can bring a laptop to show off their virtual machine setup so those who are less informed may become enlightened.  And those of you weeping and gnashing your teeth over wireless issues, are happy to bring those along as well.

Even if the VM session sounds fine, please suggest a future topic or square table discussion.  DD-WRT could be a possibility, wireless issues, a new distro or some really cool app.  You name it.

Rev. Fr. Michael Standfest, W0NXM
Vice President, AmesLUG
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