On Thursday 26 June 2008 15:46:26 lynn wrote:

What's a VBox install?

I think he is talking about Virtual box, or a virtual Machine in general. -- "We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure." Karl Popper

On Thursday 26 June 2008 22:09:42 Clayton wrote:

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What's a VBox install?

I think he is talking about Virtual box, or a virtual Machine in general.

Yup. I use VirtualBox a lot on my computer. It's a great way to isolate development environments, and my work environment. For example I VPN to the servers at work. If I do that on my host (the main OS), then all network traffic is routed through my employers servers. I don't want that. If I VPN from openSUSE installed in VirtualBox, then my work environment is nicely isolated from the rest of my system (but I can still move files back and forth between the host system and the guest) and all work related network traffic remains in the VM.

That's a really technical explanation. Could you explain in plain English what you do? None of my employees who also read this list understand VPN for example. Here's an example of plain English at this level:. I use SuSe 11.0, nfs and NIS to work on openoffice. We produce leaflets and and scans for t.shirts Oh and flyers to put under windscreen wipers. Could virtual box improve my turnover? Love from L x -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

He is kind of using a (virtual) machine inside his computer at home dedicated to "work", so that the "home" machine and the "work" machines are separate and don't contaminate one another. But it is physically a single computer, so he saves money (instead of having two real computers).

The VPN is... say like an extension of the work environment to an external computer, so that you can work at home as if your computer is connected inside the business network of the company.

Thanks for clarifying that Carlos. :-) Carlos hit it dead on, but here is a more lengthy explanation. I have one computer at home. On that computer I have openSUSE 11.0 installed. This is the called the host OS. It is the main operating system, and everything else runs on top of that. On the host OS I have installed VirtualBox. VirtualBox runs as an application like any other on the host OS, but provides a virtual computer that I can install other operating systems on. When you start up VirtualBox, and then launch a virtual machine, it starts up with a BIOS screen just like a real computer, and boots an operating system just like a real computer. Each operating system you install into VirtualBox is referred to as a guest OS. VPN is a Virtual Private Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network This is how I log into my employer's network. When I connect using VPN, my computer effectively becomes another computer on my employer's network, and everything I do is routed through my employer's network. I have full access to all my employer's network drives just as if I was sitting at my desk in the office. This allows me to work from home when I choose, and still have my complete work environment available. When you connect with VPN, all of your network traffic is routed to the server you are connected to. I don't want that - I run BitTorrent, a personal webserver and so on, and that network traffic should never be routed through my employer's severs. The easy solution to this is to use VirtualBox and install a guest OS. I have openSUSE 11.0 running as a guest OS, and I use that guest OS to VPN to my employer. This way, all network traffic from the guest OS is set to my employer via the VPN, and all network traffic from my host OS stays where it should be, going through my private ISP. VirtualBox allows me to easily isolate my working environment from my personal environment. I also use VirtualBox to test other operating systems such as each release of OpenSolaris. I used VirtualBox to test out openSUSE 11.0 and KDE4 before committing to installing it as the host OS so that I could be sure that I liked how things worked before I committed my computer to running a new OS. I also have WindowsXP installed for those rare occasions where I need Windows to do some task. The advantage is I have multiple OSes available to me at any time, that can be started on demand without ever having to reboot my host OS, or having to deal with mutliboot setups. In your case, would VirtualBox improve your turnover? I would agree with Carlos... probably not. VirtualBox's strength is in providing a way for you to run more than one operating system on a single computer without needing to reboot to get to each one. There are many ways to use this... for example running Windows XP as a guest so that you can access certain Windows only apps you may need to run your business while keeping Linux as your main/core OS. If you don't need more than one OS at the same time, then it's not so interesting to you and your business. Does this help clarify things a little? Or did a add to the mud :-) C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

I think is this situation virtual box is an overkill (I use it often, but for other purposes)

if virtual box can route to the vpn without you host being also on this vpn, this mean you can do it yourself also...

this mean you probably have to setup a second interface on top of the first, for example eth0:1 and eth0 and route eth0:1 to your vpn.

But which is easier to maintain :-) The VPN thing isn't the only reason I use VirtualBox to isolate my work environment... overall, it is simply easier if I can isolate my entire work environment from my personal desktop. Work stuff stays with work stuff.. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Matthew Stringer wrote:

I tried it just to see but quickly determined it to be unusable, sure it's not finished but I just didn't like the idea of everything being a widget so as I haven't looked at KDE4 that closely yet. I assume you are referring to the controls surrounding each icon? I wonder if that can be turned off? Perhaps it could be tailored to the way you would like to see?

that seems to be the direction of the GUI I can see me either sticking with 3.5 or switching to Gnome you wouldn't want to do that :-) I did install 11.0 with KDE4 on my 7 year old son's computer. His favorite game is the Planet Penguin tux racer. He found some bugs with the game so he asked me for some help. With all this discussion about KDE4 I wondered if the issue was with that so I installed Gnome and KDE3. He tried his game with Gnome and complained about the sound being out of sync with the video. I found he was right and discovered it only happened when playing the game with Gnome. The game seems to work fine with either KDE3 and KDE4.

Damon Register -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 26 June 2008 21:24:23 Adam Jimerson wrote:

I'm using it, and I am very happy with it I do admit here is some rough edges to it but all in all it is very good. My biggest problems is with PIM (really hope that the changes made to PIM in 4.1 beta 2 gets backported to 4.0.4)

Yes they will. I blogged about what my plans are on friday - it's aggregated on planetsuse. http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3532 Will -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org