XP inside 10.04

[Basil Chupin]

On 30/07/2010 22:33, Bob Hickey wrote:
> I need XP for my Kodak printer and Canon camera, but XP doesn't play 
> well with others. I read there's a way to install XP inside my 10.04 
> and possibly gain some reliability. Anybody know how? Thanx a lot; Bob H.

Yes, one can install XP within a linux distro using something like 
virtualbox - inbuilt into, say, Ubuntu - or the commercial VMWare; and 
you can also run some Windows programs using 'wine' in a linux distro.

However, and here I am stating something based on what the facilities I 
knew about a few ago: whatever apps you use for Windows to run inside a 
linux distro depend very much on whether the linux distro has the 
drivers to be able to run the hardware aimed at Windows or not. For 
example, if the Kodak printer cannot be run by a linux distro to begin 
with then running it using something like Virtual Box within a linux 
distro will not solve your problem.

What you need to do is to find out whether there is a driver for the 
Kodak printer available for linux; if there is then you really don't 
need XP to use that Kodak printer - Ubuntu will use that printer for 
what you want.

Canon camera? As far as I know, Ubuntu will handle any camera; digikam 
for example will handle - as far as I know - all cameras, but check for 
yourself.

On the other hand, other Canon devices like scanners, printers are NOT 
linux friendly (Canon will not provide the drivers nor provide the info 
for people to write drivers for linux.) There ARE some Canon devices 
which will work under linux (see the SANE project site for examples).

While I was using Windows XP years ago I had Canon gear. I gave it all 
away because it was not linux friendly and now have HP or Epson which 
are linux friendly.

Having stated the above, you can always set yourself up to dual-boot: 
have XP installed and Ubuntu as well - and boot into XP when you feel 
that you absolutely need to because the piece of hardware you have 
requires XP. And use ubuntu for everything else to give you peace of mind...

BC

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