Jacob Santos

For the longest time, I’ve just always used Windows. I knew about Linux and used it here and there. I can do some things, but to be honest, I don’t know enough to get around day to day. I can’t really manage it like it can manage a Windows machine.

To be honest, the reason I choose to go with Linux was for the Virtual Machine and I’m not cutting Windows out completely. I think that eventually, I might go back to Windows, because it is what I know and have known for years. However, right now, I’m not seeing a real need for it. I’m interested in seeing how Linux performs in memory (right now it appears to be kicking ass).

With the virtualization, I’m not cutting any applications out. If I need to use Windows, then I can start the Virtual Machine and install and run the application there. I’m going to be setting up either NFS or Samba, so that I can still access my files, so that if I want to go back to Windows, I can do so, it will just be without all of the storage. Both Windows has enough space for installing applications, so I’m not worried about that. Well, Vista has a 100GB partition, so I’m a little worried that it will get full quickly. A few games I have will fill it pretty fast. That said, I could use the WinXP, which has 400GB partition, so I can still install my games and applications on it.

Microsoft appears to have some interesting Virtualization coming in the next few years, so I’m interested in what they are going to be doing with it. I’m more than interested in the Thin Virtualization, which basically allows an application to run as if it was on XP, 2000, and I’m hoping Win9x as well, because I have a few games I can’t play on Vista and XP (well, maybe XP, I’ll try installing it again). I’m not sure if Microsoft is going to go back that far with its compatibility, since it seems like it would cost a lot in space and performance.

It appears that Microsoft is attempting this to get rid of the compatibility problems that plagued some people with going to Vista and they were quite vocal on that. It might not seem like quite a lot, but I would like to run my old games at the very least, because I will eventually have children and a few of my old games should interest them (Star Craft, WarCraft). Well, by the time they are able to play the games, there will probably be a Virtual Machine release with most of them anyway, like what they have now for Atari games.

Well, I could also try Wine and see if it can play the games. I’m not sure if I want to try Wine, because I have Virtualization of the actual OS. Doesn’t seem as important now to use Wine, well, if I didn’t have a legal copy of WindowsXP and Vista, I might try it.

I’m using KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) as the hypervisor, which is actually on top of Kubuntu 9.04. The problem I had was that I was trying to use the Server edition as the hypervisor and well, it is a lot easier to manage it using X Windows. In the future, I might look at the tiny X Window system for the hypervisor and if I learn more about Linux or the server edition becomes easier to manage, I might go with that. My problem was that I wanted Linux on top of Linux and didn’t realize the best way to do it was to instead go with Windows on top of Linux and just Linux as Linux.

The nice part about using Linux, is that I’ll be able to set up a backup for my server, using rsync, which will carry over to my next host. I can listen to most of my music (I have to install iTunes for the protected ones) and the videos I tried, I have been able to watch. I’m going to see about the different codex packs and see if I’ll need them. If so, then I can always switch to Windows and watch the videos, if they are not available on Linux.

Well, I was able to solve the free space by a tweet from Peter Westwood, which is “df -h”. Two of the other problems will be solved tonight with the other needing some outside help.

More Problems

So most of my problems are solved. I’m going to install PDT on Linux, so I’ll have a PHP editor. I’m going to install Visual Studio 2005 on Windows, so I’ll have that as well for the rare occasions I might need it. So mostly, except for a few other problems coming up, I’m doing just fine without Windows.

1. I have dual-monitors, but I can’t prevent the second monitor from cloning the first.

   This is really irritating me to no end, and is really is what might cause me to go back to Windows as the base install instead of using Linux. I spent three or four hours already trying to be able to drag my applications over to the second monitor to no success. I’m going to the forums tonight to see if anyone can help me. Basically, I was able to get aticonfig and AMD CCC Linux Edition installed and working. However, the thorn in my eye is xrandr, which doesn’t wish to allow me to use my monitors as dual.

   It may have something to do with both DVI connections being on the same adapter and appearing as one screen. The problem may eventually be fixed, but I’m depending on ATI drivers as well. Therefore, I’m hoping I don’t have to reinstall and remove the ATI drivers and work with xrandr. I might have screwed my dual-monitor capability completely, which sucks. If I do have to reinstall, then I’m most likely going with Gnome instead of KDE, since most of the support deals with Gnome instead of KDE. I was able to get past that with some aspects, but I’m feeling that it would be easier for me, if I used Ubuntu, instead of Kubuntu.

   Update: This is fixed.

2. Windows Systems need to be able to access my Linux and Windows Drive.

   This problem is very, very simple to fix. I’ve done it plenty of times before. The reason I haven’t is that I spent most of last night attempting to be able to move applications from one monitor to the next!

   Update: I had to reinstall Samba to get it to work. After that, it is all good. I now have access to a drive that can go back and forth between Linux and Windows.

3. Email settings and Firefox bookmarks.

   This will take less than an hour to complete, it is just that the email settings require that I visit Google’s knowledge base to find the answer for where to connect. Also, I just need to copy my bookmarks to the correct place and I’ll be done. If I need to export, then I can install Firefox on Windows and then export from there. Once the email and browser are set up then I’ll be closer to normalcy and once this time has past, I’ll hardly notice I’m using Linux. Well, except for the dual-monitor issue.

   Update: I’m not too concern with this, I’ll take a look at it over the weekend. I still need to get several other things working before I take the time to migrate my settings over.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.