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I had a problem with our home theater pc the other day.  I’d installed Windows 7 and for the most part it’s been working nice. The interface seems cleaner and more responsive than Vista. One problem that had cropped up was that the Windows Media Center had broken my ability to record over the air high-definition tv. I had been using a work around to convince Windows Media Center to recognize my networked tv tuner and download an online tv guide so I could set up recording sessions.

In Linux I had been able to use a media center like application called MythTV which is open source and worked well with my tv tuner. The tv tuner can pick up the over the air electronic program guide so recording programs was a snap in Mythtv. The problem is that Mythtv was developed in the Linux field first and any ports to Windows are still experimental and buggy.

It seemed to me I needed to have both Windows and Linux working in the same computer >simultaneously<. Hmmm, that’s a tall order isn’t it? Not really. Most computers nowadays have more horsepower than what you actually need to carry out tasks. Technology called “virtualization”  allows a computer to have a split personality or several personalities at the same time. If you’re an old movie buff think of it like having your own schizophrenic Sybil in computer form. Only they’re all nice personalities.

Anyways a company called Oracle released a free software product called Virtualbox which allows you to split your computer into a “host computer” that can accommodate  a number of  ”guest computers” within itself. You can download the program for Apple Mac, Windows-based and Linux-based computers. I downloaded the Windows version of the program and installed it.

Once the program is installed you can create guest systems that can be different operating systems. The common term is creating a “sandbox” where you can build a system inside the main machine and run it without worry of crashing the main machine. Once you have reserved a space for a guest system with Virtualbox you can install the operating system of your choice inside it just like you were doing it on the main machine. I created a “sandbox” for a Linux system and installed it. Now I had a working Linux system running in a window inside the windows 7 machine.

That just boggles the mind eh?  In Linux I was able to set up MythTV to tune and record tv programs. With a little more tweaking you can share files between the virtual computer and the main machine. There is a small performance hit running inside the virtual “guest machine” but it’s not noticable that much. Maybe you have a problem where you need two or more machines inside the same physical box? Or maybe you want to try a different operating system but don’t want to lose what you already have installed on your main machine. Virtualbox is a neat way to make your computer a multifaceted tool.

Jim

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