> I'm aware that the trend is towards VMs - I've been putting it off for a few > months but I guess it might be time for me to experiment with them a little > bit... I'm a little scared - see, I'm worried that it will mean more time > troubleshooting my computer and less time actually using my computer...
in an ideal world you'd have two computers, one (server setup) to run your vm's on, the second (your day-to-day favourite) to remote desktop into your vm's. both VMware and VirtualBox are pretty painless, stable and free (though, personally, I did loathe the VMware web administration thingy and stopped using it last year), the Sun software has the advantage of allowing very easy VM management from the command-line (ie you don't need to run a X server for the graphical i/f). both VMware and VirtualBox are very well supported via their respective 'communities', but there are other virtualisation products too. as to losing time troubleshooting, I think it's safe to say that the advantages of going virtual will outweigh the initial investment in time (of getting used to). a big advantage of virtualisation, IMO, is that each vm is just a set of files and, if something does go wrong, as in rootkit or malware, delete them, retrieve a copy from store, and you're back in business. there's also the fact that you can have multiple virtual hard disks which you connect and disconnect as needed, allowing you share/transfer data between systems as you please. (sorry for going on and on) -- regards, jr. time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth? TBD, Wednesday 2010-10-06 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://bit.ly/4sACa
