I used VirtualBox on a personal machine for a while, mostly because I
needed pc specific applications and I had a mac at home. It is a little
slow, but that could probably be partially addressed by allocating your RAM
a little differently. And can also be a little tricky to configure properly
if you are doing anything "special." I seem to remember having to uninstall
and reinstall windows a couple of different times for it to actually work.
Also, not all peripherals will work through VirtualBox. I don't think I
could print anything from there, and the webcam/mic that was native on the
mac would not work. There were some other things that were wonky, too, but
I haven't needed to use it in about a year, so I can't remember exactly
what was odd and non-functional. Also it could have be that if I had messed
with the configuration settings a bit more it would have been more
functional.

I've heard that Parallels is easier to set up. But it costs money. I chose
VirtualBox because it was free, and that was about how much money I was
willing to put into it. :)


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Cary Gordon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> These virtualization tools run as apps in OSX. Double-click (wait...) and
> go.
>
> VirtualBox is owned by Oracle, which picked it up from Sun who bought it
> as a way to promote Solaris on the desktop (We know how well that worked
> out). Like MySQL, it is free for now, but no guarantees.
>
> Other virtualization tools for OSX are VMWare Fusion (meh) and Parallels
> (fastest).
>
> Cary
>
> On Aug 12, 2013, at 12:08 PM, Nate Hill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > So VirtualBox allows you to feel like you are switching your OS without
> > rebooting, correct?
> > A user can, for example, fire up a Mac and then if they want to launch a
> > Windows environment they can do so with a double-click, yes?
> > Thanks all for your thoughts on this, it is helpful...
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Cornel Darden Jr. <
> [log in to unmask]
> >> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> The issue at public terminals is being able to switch between operating
> >> systems with out having to reboot. To my knowledge refit nor boot camp
> >> offers this.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Cornel Darden Jr.
> >> MSLIS
> >> Librarian
> >> Kennedy-King College
> >> City Colleges of Chicago
> >> Work 773-602-5449
> >> Cell 708-705-2945
> >>
> >>> On Aug 12, 2013, at 12:48 PM, Francis Kayiwa <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 11:57:21AM -0400, Nate Hill wrote:
> >>>> Is anyone on the list using mac computers and bootcamp or some other
> >>>> partition to offer public access to either a mac or windows
> environment
> >> for
> >>>> their users?  This seems like ti could be a pretty cool option to
> >> present
> >>>> folks with.
> >>>>
> >>>> Any thoughts on the matter?  I'm trying to figure out what to replace
> >> our
> >>>> public computers with here in Chattanooga.  Obviously I want them to
> be
> >>>> both inexpensive and awesome.
> >>>
> >>> I forgot to mention ReFit [0] (now defunct but should still work)
> and/or
> >> ReFind which is recommended at their Website.
> >>>
> >>> This will allow a user to select which OS to boot after POST.
> >>>
> >>> ./fxk
> >>>
> >>> [0] http://refit.sourceforge.net/
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Nate Hill
> >>>> [log in to unmask]
> >>>> http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/
> >>>> http://www.natehill.net
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> People are beginning to notice you.  Try dressing before you leave the
> >> house.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Nate Hill
> > [log in to unmask]
> > http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/
> > http://www.natehill.net
>