Posted: 27 Dec 2009 11:16 am
Thanks for the info to all.
Jonathan, this is a dual boot install, but sometimes I only need Windows for one thing, and then just for a couple of minutes, so the convenience of a Windows VM is nice (booting Windows is a real PIA). As it's turned out, I haven't really needed Windows for anything other than IE, as my company uses Outlook and a webmail tool, and IE gives me a better 'interface' into the remote Outlook mail client (or whatever it is) than Firefox. I usually run the Windows VM for just long enough to do that and then close it, so really no huge conflict of resources I don't think.
Steve, agreed, I'm actually fairly comfortable with the command line interface. I worked in a Unix enviroment for several years (not recently) and was pretty fair at shell scripting, enviroment configs, etc.. I think that's really the big problem for a lot of folks with Linux, as you say you really need to get comfortable with doing things that customize the environment to what you want, and not all of it is as obvious as clicking a box in a GUI. As far as Google, absolutely, that's been my main info resource, there is a ton of useful info. I've already visited several of the links you mentioned.
John, I haven't revisited the CD problem yet, as I haven't needed it for the reasons above. I just don't spend that much time in Windows anymore. I may investigate just out of curiosity, but I did notice if I don't actually use the CD reader in the VM, there is no problem when I close it and go back to Ubuntu.
I'm having a blast.. and it feels SO good to be Microsoft-free (as much as possible).
Jonathan, this is a dual boot install, but sometimes I only need Windows for one thing, and then just for a couple of minutes, so the convenience of a Windows VM is nice (booting Windows is a real PIA). As it's turned out, I haven't really needed Windows for anything other than IE, as my company uses Outlook and a webmail tool, and IE gives me a better 'interface' into the remote Outlook mail client (or whatever it is) than Firefox. I usually run the Windows VM for just long enough to do that and then close it, so really no huge conflict of resources I don't think.
Steve, agreed, I'm actually fairly comfortable with the command line interface. I worked in a Unix enviroment for several years (not recently) and was pretty fair at shell scripting, enviroment configs, etc.. I think that's really the big problem for a lot of folks with Linux, as you say you really need to get comfortable with doing things that customize the environment to what you want, and not all of it is as obvious as clicking a box in a GUI. As far as Google, absolutely, that's been my main info resource, there is a ton of useful info. I've already visited several of the links you mentioned.
John, I haven't revisited the CD problem yet, as I haven't needed it for the reasons above. I just don't spend that much time in Windows anymore. I may investigate just out of curiosity, but I did notice if I don't actually use the CD reader in the VM, there is no problem when I close it and go back to Ubuntu.
I'm having a blast.. and it feels SO good to be Microsoft-free (as much as possible).