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Thu, Sep. 6th, 2012, 06:59 pm
On trying out operating systems in virtual machines

I quite like VirtualBox. Yes, VMWare has strengths, but VBox works a treat, does the seamless-desktop thing with certain
hosts/guests, and basically why pay?

I use VMware Player when I'm doing stuff that requires direct USB access - it's a lot less hassle than VBox for that. You need to run it with admin rights, though, which is a snag.

But when I am revewing operating systems, I tend not to use virtual machines.  I mean, sure, they work, but - for instance - one will not feel or experience the ways in which Ubuntu is a lot better than Windows unless one's running it on the actual hardware. E.g. the fast boot and shutdown times, the improved performance one gets when one doesn't need an antivirus program scanning every sodding disk access and all the crap that runs in the background in Windows.

Raw Ubuntu is quicker and feels quicker, and personally, I prefer the UI to Windows 7's. Win7 is the result of 17 years of work on the Win95 Explorer and yet in some ways it's inferior to the original. I preferred the original taskbar and the original file manager,  TBH.

Ubuntu is a breath of fresh air.

And if Ubuntu is nice and quick, then the stripped-down "remixes" of it, such as Lubuntu and Bodhi Linux, can be breathtaking. You don't get a real feel for that in a VM.

Another issue is drivers. There's the delightful way that Linux and Mac OS X just use generic drivers, rather than Windows' endless dicking around with that vendor's particular driver for that rebranded Taiwanese POS and the pointless fucking icon it sticks in your notification area.

There's the joy of no serial numbers, no activation, and an OS that you can just copy onto an external drive or onto an entirely different PC with totally different hardware and which Just Works™ without falling in a heap because the drive controller chipset has changed or because you've changed more bits of hardware than some evil fatcat bastard's minions in Seattle have decided you're allowed to.

You don't get any of that in a VM.

Running an OS in a VM is like trying to understand what it's like to pet a cat, or perhaps cuddle a baby if you like the things, when it's in an isolation chamber and your arms are in giant rubber gloves and you're peering at it through a small window.

Yeah, it's better than nothing, but it's Not The Same. You don't get a real feel for it.
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 Leave a comment | 7 comments

Sat, Sep. 8th, 2012 04:22 pm (UTC)
reddragdiva

For actual work, "server" these days increasingly means "Linux VM". So I would completely disagree on "running an OS in a VM", though I can see the point for reviewing.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 12:50 pm (UTC)
liam_on_linux

Just out of curiosity - do you mean Linux inside a VM on $OS (which might well be Linux, I suppose), or $OS in a VM under Linux (via KVM or something)?

I guess that's true for production server OSes. Less so for client ones, just yet, though. But when I talk to people trying to "evaluate" Linux as a replacement for Windows, either on clients or servers, then my point is that they will learn nothing substantive about boot times, driver support, system performance, responsiveness or anything else running it in a VM. This is something I find surprisingly hard to get across.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 01:16 pm (UTC)
reddragdiva

I mean a Linux VM running on whatever (almost certainly Linux). With occasional Windows VMs here and there.

I see your point about evaluation, but if you're talking about server side, the result will likely be a Linux VM. The only substantial case when it won't is when proprietary software (particularly Oracle) has a stupid licensing scheme (per-CPU on the whole VM server) that you have to buy a smaller box just for it.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 01:51 pm (UTC)
liam_on_linux

OK, gotcha. Ta for that - you make a good point.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 01:59 pm (UTC)
reddragdiva

Basically, if it's 2012 and Linux on the server is literally an unknown quantity to them, they're deeply far gone into the world of Windows. There are a few people still moving stuff off Solaris (we moved all our stuff from Solaris boxes and zones to Linux VMs just in March), but even then it's just porting to another popular Unix.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 03:00 pm (UTC)
liam_on_linux

On a server, agreed.

But actually, I'd say that 9/10 of the businesses I deal with /are/ that wedded to Windows, yes. That's a conservative estimate, BTW.

The last 2 companies I've worked for have both expressly & explicitly forbidden me to mention FOSS or its use. Yes, really.
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Sun, Sep. 9th, 2012 03:25 pm (UTC)
reddragdiva

Windows on the server is ... its own reward. My work bought an entirely Windows-based company a while ago. Their main server is a bespoke Windows application, so that's gone on its own Windows VM in our mostly-Linux collection and that's theirs to deal with - applications come first, after all. They also have some Java in Tomcat running on Windows, which we'll be moving to our existing infrastructure of Java in Tomcat on Linux in due course, but we're not in any mad rush to do so.
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