Virtualization

[Petrus de Calguarium]

Javier Perez wrote:

> do I have to reformat my HD, reinstall FC12, and then
> install win2k, or can I just install yum install the
> virtual parts for kvm and have it start as a guest
> the already isntalled win2k ?
> 

In my experience, this does not work (I have tried to use a 
windows version installed on another partition -- to no 
avail). Maybe you can get it to work?

Generally, you will install qemu, qemu-kvm &c., then you 
will run qemu-img to create a qcow2 disk image (you probably 
want about 15-20G, depending on how many windows programs 
you want to install) and then you will install windows on 
that disk image.

Then, when you are running fedora, you can use qemu-kvm (not 
as root) to boot the version of windows that is installed on 
the disk image. Windows will probably need about 1024 memory 
to run well. You should keep about half of your memory for 
fedora, of course.

Summary:

Create image:
qemu-img create -f qcow2 windows.img 15G

Install Windows from a cdrom (if you have an upgrade version 
of windows, this requires changing disks using commands from 
the console; ctrl-alt-1/ctrl-alt-2 to switch console and 
emulation screens):
qemu-kvm -m 1024 -cdrom /dev/sr0 -boot d -soundhw all -hda 
windows.img

Boot virtual machine:
qemu-kvm -m 1024 -boot c -vga std -soundhw all -localtime -
hda windows.img