Microsoft has released the beta version of Windows 8 (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/iso). Here's a method to quickly test the Linux OS, using the tools Qemu and KVM virtualization. This beta is available for download until January 15, 2013, after this date, this version will be unusable.
(http://i40.tinypic.com/rj2nn6.jpg)
1. the prerequisites for installing Windows 8 are:
Processor 1GHz
1 GB of RAM
20 GB of available disk space for 64-bit
Before you begin, you need to look if your processor supports virtualization. Run this command and check for vmx or svm flags:
egrep --color "(vmx|svm)" /proc/cpuinfo
If this is the case, then you can install KVM. Run this command for an RPM based distribution:
sudo yum install qemu-kvm qemu-img
Or this one for a Debian-based distribution:
sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
2. Installing Windows 8
Then download the ISO image of Windows 8 from Microsoft's site (windows 8 consumer preview):
wget -O Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso http://iso.esd.microsoft.com/WCPDL/BD1B8A49393E30CC9C4E5C88457D73E964F1F3B18/Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso (http://iso.esd.microsoft.com/WCPDL/BD1B8A49393E30CC9C4E5C88457D73E964F1F3B18/Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso)
create a virtual hard disk of 20 GB to be used for storage:
qemu-img create disk.img 20G
the we have to launch the virtual machine with the correct parameters (memory size, location of the ISO image, the keyboard language, the boot order ...):
qemu-kvm -m 1024 -hda disk.img -k fr -cdrom Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso -boot order=cd &
The license key for the preview version is :
NF32V-Q9P3W-7DR7Y-JGWRW-JFCK8
3. Launch Windows 8
If you need to launch Windows 8 after installation, you can use this command:
qemu-kvm -m 1024 -hda disk.img -k fr
If you want to exit the window, you can use the Ctrl + Alt.
I wish you a good test. For my part, I find the new interface "Metro" Microsoft is not terrible. Worse that Unity on Ubuntu ...