# running emulated/VM Windows on FreeBSD for remote usage



## patpro (Feb 6, 2014)

Hello,

I have a FreeBSD 9.x headless box acting as gateway/firewall/LAN NFS server/etc. I would like to run a small Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (like VMware Horizon View for example) so that 1 client on the LAN can run a full remote windows.
It should support PCoIP as communication protocol, for best results. I played a little bit with Virtual Box, but it looks like I'm stuck with VNC...

Any idea?


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## SirDice (Feb 6, 2014)

If it's a Windows virtual machine why don't you enable Windows RDP?


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## patpro (Feb 6, 2014)

Well, I know almost nothing about this, but I do believe you can't enable everything on every Windows version: availability of services might depend on the release and the version of Windows. I'm likely to create a win98 VM.
Secondly, I'd be happy to extend the VDI to other OSes.
Finally, does Windows RDP support remote USB (plug USB drive on client, mount inside VM) ?


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## SirDice (Feb 6, 2014)

RDP is available from Windows 2000 and upwards. You really shouldn't be using Windows 98 any more, Microsoft stopped supporting it 8 years ago.

The older versions of RDP don't support remote USB but recent versions should, at least partially: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... op-session


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## patpro (Feb 6, 2014)

I know that XP is not supported anymore, and that it's a very old release, but frankly I don't care. VDI means no GPU, not much RAM. I won't pay a brand new 8.1 license to find out it kills my fanless low-power FreeBSD box


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## SirDice (Feb 6, 2014)

patpro said:
			
		

> I know that XP is not supported anymore, and that it's a very old release,


XP is still supported, until April 2014. It's 98 that's not supported any more. And I very much doubt that recent third party software would install on it. XP should still work but a lot of new software requires at least Vista nowadays.


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## patpro (Feb 6, 2014)

Damn, sorry for the confusion. From the beginning I was thinking about Win XP, but wrote Win 98. My bad.

I don't intend to run modern software on this VM, and I know XP is all I need (I run other WinXP). I don't want this thread to turn into a "what is best windows as guest OS" discussion. My goal is to achieve VDI on top of FreeBSD headless box, with a communication protocol that would be - if possible - handled by hypervisor so that the guest OS is irrelevant. PCoIP would be great, because it allows many things (sound, USB...)


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## SirDice (Feb 6, 2014)

Windows XP's RDP does do sound but I'm not sure about the remote USB features. I'm afraid we don't have virtualization software that can do all the things you want it to do. I don't think Linux's XEN or KVM would either. Have you thought about running VMWare ESXi on bare metal? You would have to virtualize your FreeBSD but you can run both FreeBSD and Windows XP on the same machine at the same time.


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## patpro (Feb 6, 2014)

ESXi could be a solution, but don't want to get rid of FreeBSD as host system, and even ESXi does not come with PCoIP protocol.
May be Virtual Box is the way to go, but last time I checked the FreeBSD port, it lacked VRDP support (and apparently, it won't happen soon).


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