🙂
The last time I tried VirtualBox for Vm environments, it just didn’t ring my chimes. I have since (mostly) used VMWare’s (mostly) free software offerings to build virtual machines with some successes… and a very few failures.
The last few days attempting to build VMs for various ‘nix boxes inside a Win7 environment have proven to be mixed successes and frustrations with VMWare’s solutions. The big problem: input devices and other peripherals that I just have NOT been able to get working right. Oh, “working” (for low-expectancy values of “working” *heh*), but not working well–particularly mousing.
*Hair Pulling* And the VMWare Tools that usually fix these irksome little things have proven intractable. Install VMWare Tools? Always a snap in the past. Now? *Pulling Hair*
Sooo, VirtualBox got another look. It just works. Mousing and keyboard capture work better OOB. And installing “Guest Additions” (the VirtualBox answer to VMWare Tools)? Not only easy-peasy, but also slicker integration of peripherals and the guest OS. Very nice.
So far, just Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu 9.04) installed in a VirtualBox VM, but I’m liking it lots better than the same OS in VMWare’s VMPlayer. Lots.
Oh, and Linux Mint itself? A slicked up version of Ubuntu. Navigating around is much simplified, and it’d be an easier transition for most Windows users to transition to Linux using Mint than even a stable version of Ubuntu (like 9.04, and soon–I hope–9.10). Still as usable as regular-drip Ubuntu, just lots slicker.
Mini-example: getting to the “Control Center” is trivially simple, now, and it just looks cleaner and more easily navigable:
Oh, and Mint comes with a buncha stuff thrown in to make things “just work” OOB, like… flash player, whereas regular, unleaded Ubuntu can take some fiddling to get media things (particularly flash stuff) working right. Hmmm, even recognized my red eye dongle for my media center remote. Now, that’s an accomplishment I never achieved in regular, unleaded Ubuntu! Nice. Next? A 64-bit version of Mint, I think… Then a VM using regular, unleaded 64-bit Ubuntu (9.04, for now I think). Then, PCBSD and one or two more.
Oh, and I started this post on the Windows 7 side and finished it in the Mint VM. Easy-peasy. Now, to install and configure WINE…
Oh! That was trivially easy! I decided to try installing WINE as though I were a (slightly brighter than average *heh*) typical Windows user, so I poked around in the Menu of the taskbar until I found something called “Mint Install”. Clicked it, entered my password and “Wine” in the search field and… didn’t see Wine as a package available for installation but did see “Wine Doors”–an app to make installing Windows apps in Wine easy. “OK,” thought I, “let’s see what that does.”
It installed the latest Wine along with the Wine Doors Windows apps installer.
Could not be easier. Of course, for Windows apps not in the Wine Doors list of apps available for installation, I’ll need to use the typical Wine installation procedures, tricks and such, but I had immediate success installing Irfanview using the lil helper app for Wine, so I can see this sort of thing making a transition easier for Windows users that simply canNOT give up World of Warcraft (2,3 available for installation in WD), for example. *heh* Such as this is definitely going to make offering a Linux option to folks easier.
Micro-mini-update (11/16/09):
*sigh* Had some weird memory errors and a “freeze” in my Mint VM. Oh, well. Easy fix. I just specified more memory to be allocated to the VM and, presto! Memory errors went away. Hmmm, if I’m going to run very many more of these VMs simultaneously, I guess I need to look at increasing my system memory overall. Oh! My! What horrors! Buy more memory? Add it to this system (well, actually, replace the memory in the ststem in order to DOUBLE it)? That’s like when I just HAVE to buy more tools (Ooo-Ooo! *heh*). What a terrible burden… *VBG*
Unfortunately, memory for this system is almost twice as expensive today as this time last year… Oh, well.
hrm, running a windows app via wine on linux in a VM running windows …. I think that could actually damage the universe. proceed with caution.
Actually, for fun, I once ran Win2KPro in a VM on Ubuntu, then ran an Ubuntu VM inside that Win2K VM and ran a Windows app via WINE in the Ubuntu VM. It was crazy-wild, but kinda fun, in a “Don’t do this at home, kids, cos you’re just playing with yourself if you do” kinda way… *heh*
But Mint in this VirtualBox VM is slicker than goose grease. Really liking it. Many of the media futzings around I’ve had to do over and over again in Ubuntu are simply unnecessary in this slickly-customized version of Ubuntu 9.04. For someone who just wants to use their computer (like 99% of Windows users), this may just be the alternative Linux distro that rings their chimes.
I’ve actually not really used Mint at all. I started with redhat waaay back in the day, moved on to Mandrake, then moved to debian and from there, Ubuntu. Haven’t seen a reason to move off of ubuntu. I will be installing a CentOS in a virtualbox because I need to get started on my LPIC and then a RHCE (big fun).
While my personal use of Linux is a Big Deal to me, I get the most mileage from Linux as something to rehab other folks’ old computers with. As far as my own use goes, I just like using most of the distros I’ve run across and have become a big fan of a few. Heck, the command line stuff is a plus for me, even though–or perhaps because? *heh*–I’ve had to do a lot of retraining of DOS twitches. 😉 I suppose I could get all serious about digging into the nuts n bolts (about eight or nine years ago, I did buy some weighty doorstops on Linux and slugged my way through ’em, but my use has been so very casual since then, I’d have to really start over were I to try being really serious about Linux), but I probably won’t at this stage.
I went to the auto auction and didn’t understand a word they said either. Glad you had fun all the same.
TF,
*heh*
Yeh, this was kinda “inside baseball” stuff for technophiles.