Catshanghai

I have been trying to run Windows XP as a virtual machine from Virtualbox using Ubuntu Feisty as a host. It works pretty well. I have access to most Windows XP services, including Web access, the CD/DVD drive and the sound card. Itunes even works. My big problem remains that I can not access a shared folder of music and videos on my Ubuntu host. USB support works fine except it will not recognise my Video Ipod and that was the main reason for tackling this endeavour in the first place.

I learnt that in order to access a shared folder an XP guest, I need to create a bridge between Windows and Ubuntu. Trouble is that all the help pages are written by talented geeks with poor communication skills. Or, maybe I am too tired or not clever enough. I cannot get it to work, but I’ll keep plugging away.

It’s a bit like knowing that you want to go on holiday to Australia, but you are not quite sure how to get there, because a nerdy captain gave you an incomplete map written in Chinese.

Update
I finally managed to install VMware Server after getting into the black arts of Nautilus. (gksudo Nautilus to give you file explorer fo Ubuntu with read write access on system files.) There was a nice tutorial, which showed me how to map a drive from my Linux host. Itunes in the virtual machine can see about 10 GB of files from the host and a removeable hard drive. My Ipod crashes it and so far Office 2003 will not install. This has been a huge black hole, although I have learnt a great deal about Linux scripts and tweaks.