Posts Tagged ‘virtualization’

Five Reasons I Would Switch (Exclusively) to Linux

Yesterday I took a look at some of the applications that I’d miss if I decided to switch away from Mac OS X to using Linux exclusively. I felt that wasn’t quite fair as there are some really compelling reasons to switch to Linux and I really didn’t give it much chance (publicly that is). Here’s five reasons I do want to make the switch.

Aptitude
Good package management is absolutely critical on any OS that one is going to be developing or serving data off of. Sure, you can download and install packages as needed, but if those packages aren’t bundled up nicely (as often happens with open source software ported to OS X or Windows), installing those packages become a pain. Need to install an application with its dependencies? No problem! Just do an apt-get install (or use yum or yast, etc. pick your poison). Sure, there’s projects like Macports, but let’s face it, you can’t beat a good native package manager.

Usable OpenOffice.org
Yes, I know that OpenOffice.org runs on Mac OS X. However, every time I’ve seen it run on OS X it’s much slower than running it in Linux on slower hardware. Even using the NeoOffice product, it seems like it just isn’t as responsive or load nearly as fast as running OOo on Linux.

Gnome / KDE (i.e. choice)
One could argue that the Linux desktop managers offer too many options, but being able to theme (nicely, not like those lame underwater themes everyone ran on Windows 98) and tweak everything is definitely a bonus. One Linux box can look exactly the same or dramatically different than the next. The important thing is, it’s all up to the user. OS X looks beautiful, but freedom is worth something as well.

Hardware Freedom
I don’t violate the EULA by installing Linux on standard PC hardware. That’s a pretty compelling argument for Linux right there. I will agree that the Mac hardware is pretty dang slick and nice, but having the freedom to run my OS on the machine of my choice is a very important deciding factor in choosing which OS I will use. I also only have to mention virtualization and Apple loses out big-time there as it won’t allow OS X to be licensed to run in a virtualized environment (except for the server).

Native X11
I know that you can run X11-based applications on OS X, but what a pain in the butt. They’re slow to start, the keyboard options change and the window management is terrible. Seriously, run GIMP on a Mac and then use it on Linux. You won’t go back.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jul 31st, 2009

Installing VirtualBox OSE on Ubuntu 8.04

Tonight I wanted to play with a couple of Linux distros on my desktop and I decided to install VirtualBox since it’s free and already has packages in Ubuntu for it. That turned into a much longer process than I thought, but not too bad. There’s a couple of steps that the open source edition’s installer on Ubuntu that are missed.

I installed VirtualBox through the Add/Remove Applications GUI application. When I ran VirtualBox, created a virtual machine, and tried to boot it I was greeted with an error:
VirtualBox kernel driver not installed. The vboxdrv kernel module was either not loaded or /dev/vboxdrv was not created for some reason. Please install the virtualbox-ose-modules package for your kernel, e.g. virtualbox-ose-modules-generic..

Apparently you have to install an additional module which Ubuntu conveniently left out. To get the correct module for any running kernel that you are using:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-`uname -r`

Fine. My module is now installed. I went to boot up my VM again..
The VirtualBox kernel driver is not accessible to the current user. Make sure that the user has write permissions for /dev/vboxdrv by adding them to the vboxusers groups. You will need to logout for the change to take effect..

I had to add my user to the vboxusers group in order to gain access to the VirtualBox module:
sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a user

Log out and log back in and voila, VM boots.

Slightly irritating, but not too bad.

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (3) : Jul 22nd, 2009

Microsoft Embraces GPL?

Satan better invest in a parka and that theoretical pig better invest in a parachute in case its flight is short-lived. Microsoft today released a Linux driver for its Hyper-V virtualization layer under (here’s where it gets interesting) the GNU GPLv2. Yes, the same Microsoft who at one time told us that the GPL was “anti-American”.

By releasing the drivers under the GPL, they’ve not only validated Linux as a value-add to run on top of Hyper-V, but they’ve also validated free software as a whole by contributing the code to the community the way any other open source vendor would. Ironically, Microsoft is actually ahead of several other companies in releasing their drivers under the open source GPL license. The driver is no doubt a move to help boost its Hyper-V market share, but it’s a critical move that Microsoft needs to get customers who would have otherwise chosen a product like VMware, KVM, or Xen. Greg Kroah-Hartman from Novell says that Microsoft will be maintaining and adding new features to the code as well.

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Filed under News : Comments (1) : Jul 21st, 2009

World’s Largest Linux Desktop Deployment

Userful and ThinNetworks announced on Tuesday that they have been selected by the Brazilian Ministry of Education to to deploy 365,800 desktops to Brazilian schools. The deployment will be the largest virtual desktop deployment in the world as well as the largest Linux desktop deployment in the world. The Userful platform allowed the schools to utilize each PC as 10 desktops rather than a 1 to 1 ratio. This allowed schools to keep costs low and Userful is bragging that the cost was less than $50 per seat (without keyboard, mouse, and monitor). You can download a 2-seat version of their software for free from their website for personal use to try it out. You just need a PC with two video cards, two monitors, and enough USB slots for two keyboards and mice. Another multi-station solution, NComputing, deployed a 180,000 workstation deployment in Macedonia last year. They are claiming up to 30 “stations” per PC (example they gave was of a sub-$1000 PC from Dell).

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 20th, 2009

openSUSE 11.1 On VMware

Yesterday I decided to install the new 11.1 release of openSUSE. Since I didn’t have any spare machines laying around, I threw it on my desktop using VMware Server. The installer was much smoother and a lot more slick than past releases, but probably what impressed me the most was that once the installation was done and I was booted up into KDE, the mouse left the VMware console screen. At first I didn’t realize what was happening. I was going in and out playing with the new OS while getting a little work done. Eventually I got the system fully patched and was ready to install the VMware tools. Then all of a sudden, I realized that the tools had already been installed and my mouse had been going in and out of the console window the whole time. The openSUSE installer had detected that it was running on top of VMware and installed the tools for me. Not too shabby.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Dec 20th, 2008

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