Open-Source Virtual PC?

sockeatingdryer

macrumors regular

Original poster

• Jul 4, 2004

• #1

What, if there are any, are some good open-source alternatives to Virtual PC?

 

jsw

Moderator emeritus

• Jul 4, 2004

• #2

If there were any truly good alternatives, people wouldn't be dying for VPC 7.

VPC 6 is a slow pig, but it's better than anything else I know of - but, of course, it won't run on a G5.

 

NusuniAdmin

macrumors 6502a

• Jul 4, 2004

• #3

jsw said:

VPC 6 is a slow pig, but it's better than anything else I know of - but, of course, it won't run on a G5.

Click to expand...

OpenOSX does 🙂

 

S

Sills

macrumors newbie

• Jul 5, 2004

• #4

yeah, openosx does.

but theres also BOCHS which is good. bochs.sf.net

 

B

BillClinton

macrumors member

• Jul 5, 2004

• #5

sockeatingdryer said:

What, if there are any, are some good open-source alternatives to Virtual PC?

Click to expand...

Darwine does to, but it's very much in it's alpha stage right now. Looks very promising however

 

micsaund

macrumors 6502

• Jul 5, 2004

• #6

NusuniAdmin said:

OpenOSX does 🙂

Click to expand...

Does anyone have any real-world input on how well the OpenOSX WinTel package works? I've got one Windows-only program that I'd like to run on my new PB (stock charting program called TC2000 if anyone else here uses it) and the price for WinTel looks right.

 

M

mwpeters8182

macrumors 6502

• Jul 5, 2004

• #7

If I recall, BOCHS and OpenOSX WinTel are the same thing... With some work you might be able to just use Bochs for free.

MP

 

S

Sills

macrumors newbie

• Jul 5, 2004

• #8

bochs is very easy to use ( well, the preconfigured things are ).

i've run lots of stuff off of bochs before, including the latest stablle version of Debian Linux.

 

NusuniAdmin

macrumors 6502a

• Jul 5, 2004

• #9

openosx is simply based upon bochs. As far as i know when u install openosx it installs bochs as well...but i may be wrong.

 

MacsRgr8

macrumors G3

• Jul 5, 2004

• #10

NusuniAdmin said:

openosx is simply based upon bochs. As far as i know when u install openosx it installs bochs as well...but i may be wrong.

Click to expand...

You are right.
OpenOSX Wintel adds a nice GUI interface in which you can define your settings easily (stuff like RAM, CD ROM support, networking etc.). It also seems to add Altivec enhancement to MacBochs, and therefore accelerated for G4 and G5.
But is is slow...slow...slow...
Ran it on a Dual G4 533 for comparison with VPC 6, both running Windoze 98 SE, and it seemed more than twice as slow as VPC 6.
Also tested Wintel on a Single G5 1.6, and there too it is painfully slow. But it does work.... 🙄