🙂
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.