Running two desktops at the same time possible?

daelo

daelo

daelo

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Hello all, got a bit of a questions here and im a bit stuck for answers.
What i basically want to do is run say two desktops on the same pc (decent enough spec) that are independent of each other, IE what you do in one of the desktops (or virtual screens) does not affect what you do in the other.

Ive had a look at virtual machine but don't think that's what im looking for really, would ideally like to say have two windows running at the same time, like vista and xp that you could switch between with a hot key or something?

So if you can understand what i'm trying to get up is there a program or method of going about this to achieve my outcome?

Thanking relevant posts in advance ;)
 
If you don't think a Virtual Machine is what you're looking for, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

I gather you want to run them completely independent of eachother. A VM does open from within your main OS which I guess is what you're trying to avoid?

In that case, I think the only thing you could do is have two computers and a KVM switch.
 
Can someone please explain which type of vmware i should be looking at please?

So vmware could actually run the two os's at the same time so i can switch between them easily?
 
All a virtual machine does is emulate a physical computer, you can run as many VM's as you want (possibly within reason lol) side-by-side at the same time. Each VM just appears as a new window within your main OS that you can switch between like you would folders etc.

As an example: you could run a win server 2003 VM that's setup as a domain, then 2 more win XP VM's that connect to the "virtual" win 2003 domain. This would all be running on your main OS and shouldn't have any impact on the way that works.

Microsoft Virtual PC, VMWare and Virtual Box are probably the 3 most used. You might also need to check that virtualization is enabled in your bios
 
And as for an example each vm runs independantly correct? So one could be running one program and another could be running something else with its own mouse performing its own actions?

I shall have a look at VMware workstation and give it a blast , its going to be running on an amd phenon (quad core not sure which one, around 2.6ghz) with 4gig of ram, providing im not trying to get it to do tooo much could i expect say 2-3 vm xp's running smoothly?
 
A VM will use the same mouse as the main OS within the VM.

Why don't you tell us what it is you're trying to achieve as that may give us a clue to the solution.
 
If you want a seperate mouse & keyboard for each virtual machine you have a rough time ahead. This is possible under linux, though difficult. I dread to think how you'd attempt it under windows.

To clarify, the solution I have in mind is run a copy of debian on a machine with two monitors attached, two keyboards, two mice plugged in. Write an xorg.conf rather carefully, and you'll have a seperate x session on each monitor. You then have independent desktops much as you wished for, if you open a copy of windows on each x session you'll have something which looks much like two seperate computers each running their own copy of windows.
 
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