I do all of my web desun in Lunux unles I want to create 3d buttons - those I do in Rhino 3D under windows
depends ion you funding a linux web buffering tool that you like to use,.
If you have enough ram leave windows running in a VM permanently..
it is but frankly its moire about remote management of windows servers..- Vbox is about sliding a pretty good screen/keyboard emulation under the virtual machine than vmware does
ICBA to go back to the beginning of this thread, but I can tell you what will work as a primary linux system with virtual windows:
Decent computer - with LOADS of RAM, at least 6GB and a competent (but not necessarily super modern or even top end) CPU, eg Intel i3 from 3 years back which is what I'm typing on right now (Lenovo T410i laptop to be exact).
With this I can run VMWare Player and a full blown copy of Windows (some reasonable version, eg 7) as smoothly as if it were native.
I have a 2nd monitor plugged in at home - so dual screen. I have a poor video chip though - default Intel that came with it - 2D is fine, 3D accelerated is poor.
VMWare allows me to have VMWare on one screen or stretched across both screens as I choose. I can even get Adobe Lightbox to use both screens correctly. That offers a lot of flexibility - eg linux + browser on the small screen checking the website and dev windows software under VM on larger screen.
I also have the VMWare image on an SSD but it is usable without.
However, if Lightbox can work in VMWare very well, I think your website software should too.
RAM is dirt cheap and makes 70% of the difference. A good SSD will do the other 30% but is optional.
??
I think you might be right....
I'm probably undercharging - especially as a fair bit of the work is 'voluntary' or 'pro bono'... I suppose the other worry is hardware capabilities - this desktop box, which runs XP fairly well, is a Dell with an E2200 2.2g, 3.25gb ram - and my laptop (which is also used for 'work' is probably more recent, but nothing startling in the way of specification...
Really don't want to be upgrading/replacing 3pcs!
Thanks Adrian
VMware makes its MONEY out of being able to have half a dozen dark room windows servers in a 'blade' 'desktops' on a sysadmins screen in cheery office with coffee machines...some miles away..
Your software didnt run in any emulator / VM on linux?
doesnt sound like you need to. Have you really not found a linux app that does what you need?
It all sounds a bit unlikely.
NT
You know full well I did!
I am sure he was referred to as "Friend" Zorin (as in Comrade) but I can't find a cite.
That's a little surprising (in a bad way) since the only reason I created a winXP SP3 VM under Ubuntu 12.04 at the time was to get a usb connected film scanner working which lacked win2k driver support.
Once I'd sorted out the Guest additions to get full USB2 support in the VM, I was able to install and use the film scanner perfectly fine.
The scanner in question is the "Traveler Film Scanner TV-6500" which I bought in Aldi about 3 1/2 years ago for the princely sum of £39.99. I see they have a very similar scanner in stock about a tenner cheaper. Whether or not it's the same scanner disguised by a new name I couldn't say but, given their money back policy, I'd say it's worth a punt.
The better VMs have a 'seamless' mode where your Windows app appears as if it's a native Linux app. If you share files between Windows and Linux, all you do is save out the images from your email (as you'd do anyway), open them in the website editor, do whatever, and go back to your email. You have an email and an editor window open - the email happens to reside in Linux, the editor in Windows, but (mostly) the distinction is hidden. Usually you get two icon bars, one for Linux and next to it one for Windows - the Windows one has the start menu in as normal.
If you do a bit of trivial protection (eg not giving the VM access to all your data, using snapshots so you always start a known-good image, and not using IE to surf to dodgy sites) there shouldn't be much risk with running XP even with the internet connected.
Theo
That's a very good point. You might rely on a windows VM initially to get instant gratification for such peripherals and find a year or three later that it becomes possible to use it directly under Linux allowing you to put that windows VM into semi-retirement if you haven't otherwise acquired yet another bit of windows only kit in need of windows support.
More usual use for a windows VM is to allow you to run windows only (no chance of a Linux port) software package for which there is no viable Linux alternative rather than address driver support issues.
What I didn't get is how Player figured in this?
I have ESXi at work and the few Windows VMs I have (mostly VMWare and Veeam Backup control systems) I managed via RDP via VPN.
I have never found a linux app that is any more competent at managing website production beyond vim.
What I'm saying is either you do it the hard way (which may be fine because you have an extensive framework you developed).
Or you use something *like* Dreamweaver (I said "like"). There's nothing on linux that fills that gap. Everything that tries to be not-vim is a piece of useless crap IME.
And I am a linux advocate - but this is the truth. It is not perfect for everything. CAD sucks too. And there's nothing *remotely* as competent as Lightbox either (I spent long enough looking) which is why I run Lightbox under Windows 7 under VMWare.
I have no shame in saying any of that. However, if you were to make me use Windows 7 for my day job which is 98 % of everything I would have to torture you.
Yes, VMware console is a bit clunky. Not as clunky as ILO or iDRAC. That's one thing Hyper-V is way better at - the console is almost as good as RDP. Relies on having drivers in the client though, hence no mouse support before they're in, which can be really tedious.
TNP is wrong about VMware being more about remote management though - physical servers have had decent remote management for ages, comments above about ILO/iDRAC clunkiness notwithstanding. It's just about cost and resilience - many servers on one box (only half a dozen?!) = less hardware cost, and the ability to fail to another seamlessly if necessary means hardware failures or upgrades become way easier.
(that later comment not really addressed at you, since you'll know it already :-) )
Nope. The extras are free on Linux. I haven't paid for anything.
I have purchased VueScan (some years ago) but I haven't managed to find a film scanner which is supported under Linux (works great on my printer/scanner combo).
My son manages hundreds of VMWare clients on Linux (RedHat) hosts. Most clients are Linux, a few are Windows 7. Hardware is all IBM.
That is interesting. I have 5 film scanners (first was £200, the rest were sub-£75, including one from Aldi) and none have worked under VB. Two of them appear to work but the image screen is blank. As I said before. my Garmin Satnavs (a 250 and a 1440) both work fine.
I didn't say that.. I tried it under Wine - and, after a bit of help from the folks on the Zorin forum, got to the point where the program would run - except for the (fairly important) bit about the text boxes only opening at one pixel high.
At this point there was a certain amount of shrugging of shoulders and 'don't know why that doesn't work' on the forum.... and I didn't get any further.
Haven't tried virtual machines, as (unless I've misunderstood) they seem to require a windows install disk, and the laptop, which was bought 2nd hand from a not so scrupulous dealer, came without a winxp cd..
Point is - I already have a windows app that does what I need - but doesn't run under Wine. It's internal data format isn't html, so transferring all of my websites to a linux app would be an amount of work (as I know from when I transferred them all away from NetObjects Fusion.. 5 years ago) As quite a few of them are sites I run out of the goodness of my heart (!) - there's no way of recouping the cost that this would involve, or finding the time to actually do it. Pretty much everything else I do could easily be done under linux - Thunderbird, Libre office, graphics editing etc.
Not sure what you mean by that ?
I think, if I was starting 'from cold' (without the investment in the Windows-based web editor) then Linux could probably do everything I need, and for free. However, at the moment, I think making the switch isn't going to be practical - because of the technical hurdles involved in getting the win-based web editor to run on linux.
Despite having worked in computers for many years, all the way down to writing device drivers, digital signal processing / logging and real-time operating system software in assembler - all I'm wanting now from a computer is a 'tool that does things'.
It seems that linux requires much more of a 'techie' approach - and, I'll admit it, I've grown to be a lazy windows user - and to expect that all you have to do to get a program running is to download the install package and let it do its stuff..
As a closet techie, linux appeals to me - but as somebody who just wants to get the work done, it seems like a steep learning curve.
I'm not wanting to get into a Linux-bashing session - just seeking info from people who've been there - but I do appreciate all of the responses, as (if nothing else) they can stop me from banging my head against the Wine brick-wall..
Thanks Adrian
Gawd yes. iDRAC: lifesaver, but they could seriously learn a thing from some of the other makers of LOMs.
BTW - I only use the VM console *within* vcenter for absolute emergencies - otherwise I just RDP to the Windows VMs via ssh tunnels.
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