>>>> OTOH, last time I tried to set up a virtual machine, it took two days
>>>> just to install Windows XP and update to service pack 3. That's quite
>>>> absurdly slow...
>>> You need better hardware.  It should never take that much time to
>>> install an OS - in my VMs, it never took that long....
>>>
>>> What specs on the machine (including host OS)?
>>  From memory, it was a 4 GHz Pentium IV with 512 MB RAM, running QEMU.
>>
>> (The laptops I'm looking at using are this spec or worse.)
> 
> Memory would be the issue here, no wonder it took forever to install, it 
> was probably swapping fiercely.
> 
> For good virtualization, you really need to have at least 1 or 2 GB of 
> memory.  Insufficient host memory can lead to serious performance 
> problems.

It didn't seem to be swapping *at all*. Hardly any HD activity. Just 
100% CPU, constantly.

I've heard people claim that the problem is QEMU - which is a user-mode 
hardware emulator rather than a virtualisation program that runs most 
code natively... but having never seen any other VM product, I don't 
know if it makes much difference.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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