Getting nothing for nothing

I feel reasonably happy. I don't have to tweak Wine to run my Windows apps. I have Windows running my Windows apps. On Linux. Virtually.

I have *one* outstanding issue at the moment. The Gateway box has a video capture card that only has Vista drivers. And Virtualization doesn't deal with the card. In this case, I'll likely have to get a Hauppauge card to run natively in Linux. *fake sniff*.

If I need to run it, I'll start my VirtualBox up. Otherwise, it sits...patiently.. in save-state mode ... as an icon on my desktop. In 10 seconds, I have a working Windows XP "box".

Sometimes, a different look at free versus what you've already paid for is enough.