I know this has nothing to do with AmigaOS, that is why I am putting this in the Alternative OS Forum. Members here usually answer questions quickly and with great insight and intelligence from their own experiences. I value your collective knowledge.
After my Dell XPS700 died a second mobo failure, I have received my second replacement computer from Dell, as the first one could only run Vista and I refused it, wanting the ability to run XP Pro. I will list here in detail what my system has in it.
XPS630i
Core2Extreme Quad Core @3.0GHz
2GB RAM
Dual NVidia 9800GT 512mb graphics cards
2 - 300GB 10,000rpm SATA hard drives (second added by me)
Dual tuner TV card
Sound Blaster X-fi sound card
Windows XP Pro SP3 installed by Dell w/OEM DVD provided
Windows Vista Ultimate Bonus OEM DVD (installed on 2nd hdd by me)
Catweasle Mk3 Flipper (added by me)
My current setup has XP Pro SP3 on one hard drive and Vista Ultimate on the other hard drive.
It is my desire to set up the identical 300GB hard drives as a RAID array to have one 600GB fast hard drive and use one OS as a primary host OS and set up all others as VMware partitions. It is my thought that this will be better and more convenient than having to reboot each time I wish to use a different OS.
My question, or request for advice is this:
Which OS should I use as my primary, or Host OS, and can I find and install the needed VMware for free, or will I have to pay for a more full featured version of some kind of virtual machine software?
I would like to have access to XP Pro SP3, Vista Ultimate, Ubuntu 8.10, and/or some other Linux distribution, and if it is some how possible, run a VM of MacOS 10.5.5.
I also want to be able to remote desktop via my LAN to MorphOS2.1 running on my EFIKA, and perhaps even AmigaOS3.9 running on my A4000T and/or A1200/060.
It would be great if I could easily run all of the above from one keyboard, monitor and mouse, without having to move from one desk to another, or from one room to another and without having to run a mass of cables to a KVM switch.
I have only a little experience with Linux, but have installed and used Ubuntu some during the past year. I have no experience setting up a RAID, but assume that XP Pro, or Vista and maybe Ubuntu all have wizards that will easily get that done for me. I have used remote desktop sharing in the past on Windows, but another person set it up. On the Mac it is easy with iChat.
I have read (IIRC) that there are remote desktop clients for MorphOS and AmigaOS. So, I am hoping that I can set them up to use from my XPS630i system.
Do any of you have answers or advice for me? I have looked around Online and found some resources for setting up VMware on XP Pro and on Linux, but none of them made a recommendation as to which OS is best for the Host OS.
My good sense tells me that using Linux as the Host OS would be the most secure, but if I keep up with my Avast virus protection and Sun Belt firewall on my Windows installations, I might be just as safe using XP Pro, or Vista Ultimate as the Host OS. If I could sell this Dell computer and buy a used (or new) Mac Pro, or iMac with decent specs similar to the capabilities of the XPS630i I would do it in a second.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Edit: I want to keep my ability to use this computer as my entertainment center for watching and recording TV shows. It is currently set up with the DVI cable going to a Dell 20" widescreen LCD display and a DVI to VGA cable going to my Vizio 37" HDTV and the dual NVidia 9800GT graphics cards working together via SLI. I don't know if this will be negatively affected if my Windows OSes are run through VMware, or if there are similar software and drivers to do the same thing from Ubuntu, or any other Linux distro.
