If someone who is a pain in the ass gives you a headache, what does that say about where your head is?
Just asking.
Win7/Ubuntu: Dual Boot Vs. VM
OK, dual booting just sucks swamp water. After just a few months of using VMs instead of dual booting, I had forgotten just how sucky dual booting really is.
Not for me, thank you.
Tried installing Ubuntu 8.10 with Wubi, but no joy. Installed just fine, apparently (or so it reported) but canNOT get it to show in the boot menu. Weird. Tried editing it manually and… no boot.
Well, Wubi installs Ubuntu in a different kind of dual/multi-boot, but it’s still, “Shut down current OS and reboot into different one” so not really all that useful.
Installing VMWare Server is easier in Win7 than in Ubuntu, but configuring VMWare Server and installing guest OSes is not. *sigh* But at least it works and doesn’t require stopping one OS to fire up another.
Now, installing VMWare Tools in the Ubuntu guest? Lots and LOTS of command line foo-foo. Oh. Well. At least it’s relatively easy command line foo-foo, just lotsa typing and retyping (cos my typing “skills”–such as they are… not–leads to lotsa typos and re-typing… and loads of pressing “Enter” to just go ahead and accept default configurations *heh*).
Oops. VMWare Tools doesn’t like the Ubuntu guest’s default location for the C headers, won’t accept it (even though version.h et al are all there). Oh. Well. Installing Open VM Tools instead. Automagic installation w/no command line foo-foo. Better for my typo-laden “Biblical typing method” (“seek and ye shall find” *heh*). VMWare needs to look into the Open VM Tools implementation.
Not bad, now. Ubuntu runs nicely, even screen configs, etc., w/o adding special, e.g. made-for-my-vidcard, drivers. With access to the external drive where my data from the Ubuntu drive is backed up, I’m pretty well set. Unfortunately, since the VM is bridging my hardware, it’s not an entirely fair comparison (no “update Ubuntu, reconfigure sound/video” issues, for example), but general usability should be pretty easy to compare. I’ll say this much just so far: when I switched to Ubuntu it was much easier finding ways to do quite a bit of the customizing I like to do with my machines than it has been with my toe-dipping in Vista machines or now in this Win7 Beta. I guess it’s a philosophy of “Hide things from users so they can’t easily break them,” but that annoys the s(p)it out of me. *heh*