Chapter 9

Virtual Operating System Lab

Virtualization has become a very big part of most networks today.  The shear possibilities it opens up coupled with the ease of snap shot backups makes it an almost must have.

For this lab we downloaded and installed Virtual PC 7, a freeware program, that allows you to virtually run another operating system on your computer while the main operating system is still running.

The goal here was to install Damn Small Linux, or DSL, into the Virtual PC 7 console and then access the internet via the virtual DSL operating system.  Try as I might, I was not able to get DSL to install and boot up to a working configuration.  After several Google searches and many pages of reading for a solution later, I was told to go ahead and try another operating system or two.

I tried three other OS’s, Ubuntu, Peppermint One and Lucid Puppy.  Ubuntu and Peppermint One ended with the same fate as DSL.  Lucid Puppy was a full on success though.

Once I got Lucid Puppy up and running I had a little bit of a quirky time getting the internet up and running because it uses its own style of web browser.  A few minutes of playing around and I was off and running on the web.