Since the LBox was mentioned on the LinuxReality.com podcast, I did a little audio (3:34 min, 2.3MB) in which I explain what it does and why it might be convenient. So, if you want to hear the German read you something, this is your chance :)

Hi Chess, and also hi to everybody listening to LinuxReality.com.

This is Stefan from LinuxBasics.org. I want to explain some things about the VMplayer and also the LBox.

VMplayer is a product from VMware. VM stands for Virtual Machine. They have created a program which simulates a computer inside a computer. This might sound ridiculous first, but it is really usefull for some people.

You can create virtual computer which exists only inside a set of files on your harddrive. You can back up those files and use or abuse that virtual computer in any way you like. At any point, you can restore from the backup and you have the nice, clean installation you started with. Isn’t that what we all want to do with windows sometimes?

Since the virtual machine is isolated from the so called host-PC it runs on, and since any changes can be easily undone, Virtual Machines are ideal for doing potentially insecure stuff, like surfing in an uncontrolled environment. Jim mentioned surfing at a hotel, where there are other Pcs in the network, which might try to hack into yours.

On their download-page, VMware offers a „safer-surf-appliance“, which you can use in such scenarios, and when you are done surfing, any changes that malware has done to the setup will become undone.

Another great application for virtual computers is to try out new operating systems, linux-distributions or simply try out new settings. At LinuxBasics.org, we were running an online Linux-course for the last nine months. As we advanced, there were exercises in the lessons which could mess up a PC big-time. Since not everybody has a „spare box“ to install a training-system, I thought it would be neat to try things out in a virtual machine.

About at the same time, VMware announced that it would release its VMplayer at no cost. As the name suggests, the player only runs existing virtual machines. To create them, you need to have to pay for the big VMware product. So I created on my VMware a virtual PC. It has a big virtual harddrive and all the peripheral devices you need, but no operating system installed. Since the virtual harddrive is empty, it does not take up much diskspace. I called this virtual spare box „The LBox“ which is a pun on our name LinuxBasics.org or as we abreviate ourselves:capital L capital B regular o

You can download the LBox and install any PC operating system on it. While you will need a license from Microsoft to install Windows, you only need an ISO-image to install any linux-distribution you want to try out.

You find instructions on how to do it at: http://linuxbasics.org/course/lbox-howto

A little word of warning: Running Virtual machines needs a lot of RAM! 512MB is the minimum that I would recommend, 1 GB, is better.

So, thanks Chess for your great show. I really like to listen to it.