Another facet of my new system......
I want to install Vmware server on the system and so it would seem to make sense to use one of the Vmware supported distributions. I will still probably run my existin Slackware setup as a guest system.
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva Suse RedHat Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
On 9/13/06, cl@isbd.net cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Tim.
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 05:22:16PM +0100, David Reynolds wrote:
On 13 Sep 2006, at 5:00 pm, Tim Green wrote:
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Ubuntu has a server install option, which doesn't install the GUI (obviously).
Every Windows server I've ever used has had a gui, wouldn't necessarily see why a server install on some of our more modern distros/OS would remove the GUI ;)
Adam
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 17:00 +0100, Tim Green wrote:
On 9/13/06, cl@isbd.net cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Compared to the others on the list I'd say Ubuntu was the less GUIfied.
There is always xubuntu (or the option of running ubuntu as a server installation and then apt-get'ing whatever packages are required for xfce)
Tim.
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On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 06:24:53PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 17:00 +0100, Tim Green wrote:
On 9/13/06, cl@isbd.net cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Compared to the others on the list I'd say Ubuntu was the less GUIfied.
There is always xubuntu (or the option of running ubuntu as a server installation and then apt-get'ing whatever packages are required for xfce)
Yes, that's what I was considering, I used to use Xfce but I've now moved to xvwm2, however Xfce will still feel reasonably familiar.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 17:00 +0100, Tim Green wrote:
On 9/13/06, cl@isbd.net cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Compared to the others on the list I'd say Ubuntu was the less GUIfied.
There is always xubuntu (or the option of running ubuntu as a server installation and then apt-get'ing whatever packages are required for xfce)
I'll raise the obligatory flag for Gentoo here. We run it on loads of servers, and not one has a GUI. We just don't emerge X. It's simple.
The thing I love about Gentoo is the ability to tune the system exactly to my requirements with no pain, and to add what I want when I want, easily.
The thing I don't love is the constant updates, but that's a downside of always being up-to-date.
Cheers, Laurie.
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 05:00:41PM +0100, Tim Green wrote:
On 9/13/06, cl@isbd.net cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva, Suse, RedHat, Ubuntu
Which will I find least different from Slackware? I have previously run Mandriva (when it was Mandrake) and Suse but I found both rather too GUIfied for comfort which is why I went to Slackware.
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
You don't want it too GUIfied, but you are leaning towards Ubuntu?!?
Are you sure?
Maybe not, I don't know Ubuntu at all, are you saying it's more GUI than the others?
Hi Chris
On Wednesday 13 September 2006 16:10, cl@isbd.net wrote:
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
If you want to go down the road of deb packaging, go straight for the original Debian - Ubuntu is little more than a snapshot of Testing...
Once Debian is installed, you have the prospect of Stable (Sarge), Testing (Etch), Unstable (Sid), or Experimental. On top of those, add in Debian-security, Backports, and a whole host of other unofficial repositories. All can be accessed from the command line or with the aid of ncurses based frontends. Alternatively, a GUI frontend in either KDE or Gtk can be used.
Regards, Paul.
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 05:53:48PM +0100, Paul wrote:
Hi Chris
On Wednesday 13 September 2006 16:10, cl@isbd.net wrote:
I suspect there's not much to choose between them all really, I have a (very) slight leaning towards Ubuntu but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
If you want to go down the road of deb packaging, go straight for the original Debian - Ubuntu is little more than a snapshot of Testing...
Once Debian is installed, you have the prospect of Stable (Sarge), Testing (Etch), Unstable (Sid), or Experimental. On top of those, add in Debian-security, Backports, and a whole host of other unofficial repositories. All can be accessed from the command line or with the aid of ncurses based frontends. Alternatively, a GUI frontend in either KDE or Gtk can be used.
... but that removes the original reasoning, Debian isn't explicitly supported by Vmware and I want my Vmware installation to be as hassle free as possible.
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 19:36 +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
... but that removes the original reasoning, Debian isn't explicitly supported by Vmware and I want my Vmware installation to be as hassle free as possible.
To be honest, whilst going for one of the supported distro's gives the path of least resistance I have installed Vmware on unsupported Distro's, running unsupported kernel versions and in one case on an unsupported Arch.
So in the end don't end up running a distro you dislike for the sake of Vmware because in most cases it can be made to work. Also for the paid for products at least I have found their support to be top notch, even on unsupported hosts.
Why not try installing the server product on Slack on your current machine..you don't need much hardware to actually start VMware itself and to be honest if the kernel modules build and load then there is a very good chance that everything would be fine.
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 08:14:33PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 19:36 +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
... but that removes the original reasoning, Debian isn't explicitly supported by Vmware and I want my Vmware installation to be as hassle free as possible.
To be honest, whilst going for one of the supported distro's gives the path of least resistance I have installed Vmware on unsupported Distro's, running unsupported kernel versions and in one case on an unsupported Arch.
Yes, I know it can be done without a huge amount of hassle. I've already found web sites describing how to do it on Slackware.
So in the end don't end up running a distro you dislike for the sake of Vmware because in most cases it can be made to work. Also for the paid for products at least I have found their support to be top notch, even on unsupported hosts.
My thought was that I don't actually have to like the distribution I'm using as host as I won't be seeing that much.
Why not try installing the server product on Slack on your current machine..you don't need much hardware to actually start VMware itself and to be honest if the kernel modules build and load then there is a very good chance that everything would be fine.
Yes, I could do that I suppose, as far as I can understand the web pages I've looked at so far it's just a matter of mangling and then unmangling the rc.d files in /etc.
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 04:10:42PM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva Suse RedHat Ubuntu
Simple answer is install any of them, then install vmware/Xen/virtualisation system of choice (or the other way round depending on your virtualisation system of choice) then install all of them until you find one you like, it's not like you have to pay licensing fees :)
Adam
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 06:04:34PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 04:10:42PM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva Suse RedHat Ubuntu
Simple answer is install any of them, then install vmware/Xen/virtualisation system of choice (or the other way round depending on your virtualisation system of choice) then install all of them until you find one you like, it's not like you have to pay licensing fees :)
Yes, but it does use rather a lot of time!
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 07:37:53PM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
Simple answer is install any of them, then install vmware/Xen/virtualisation system of choice (or the other way round depending on your virtualisation system of choice) then install all of them until you find one you like, it's not like you have to pay licensing fees :)
Yes, but it does use rather a lot of time!
Hmmn, possibly, but at least you will be up to speed with using your virtualisation software and debugging it. I'd personally say go for Ubuntu as it has good package management (as it uses .deb) rather than the others which use rpm (which always breaks for me when doing upgrades) and uses many parts of Debian under the hood (although the next release is going to be /quite/ different). I'd also use it because many aluggers who use vmware products also run them under Ubuntu (like me for example, I'd rather use Xen but due to the unique way my computer is setup it'd mean a reinstall which I cba to do right now).
Adam
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 08:04:01PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 07:37:53PM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
Simple answer is install any of them, then install vmware/Xen/virtualisation system of choice (or the other way round depending on your virtualisation system of choice) then install all of them until you find one you like, it's not like you have to pay licensing fees :)
Yes, but it does use rather a lot of time!
Hmmn, possibly, but at least you will be up to speed with using your virtualisation software and debugging it. I'd personally say go for Ubuntu as it has good package management (as it uses .deb) rather than the others which use rpm (which always breaks for me when doing upgrades) and uses many parts of Debian under the hood (although the next release is going to be /quite/ different). I'd also use it because many aluggers who use vmware products also run them under Ubuntu (like me for example, I'd rather use Xen but due to the unique way my computer is setup it'd mean a reinstall which I cba to do right now).
Well that sounds like another plus for Ubuntu.
Thanks for all the comments so far.
On Wed, September 13, 2006 6:04 pm, Adam Bower wrote:
On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 04:10:42PM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
So the choice lies between:- Mandriva Suse RedHat Ubuntu
Simple answer is install any of them, then install vmware/Xen/virtualisation system of choice (or the other way round depending on your virtualisation system of choice) then install all of them until you find one you like, it's not like you have to pay licensing fees :)
I'm thinking exactly the same thing. A slimline install of absolutely anything, but nice and secure, with a feature rich virtual Windows install... just kidding! :)
-Mark
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On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 00:15 +0100, Mark Ridley wrote:
I'm thinking exactly the same thing. A slimline install of absolutely anything, but nice and secure, with a feature rich virtual Windows install... just kidding! :)
Although to some degree you could just put a skeleton OS on as the Host just to support the Virtual machines and then run your primary OS as a guest alongside any other guests you require. There are some problems with doing this.
Overall VMware's performance is perhaps 75% of the native machines performance (assuming one guest running..Server is supposed to cope better than workstation with multiple guests) Most of the performance differences are I/O bound because you are going through extra layers of abstraction. Later VT releases may help some of this.
You don't have full access to all your hardware from the VM guests. So hardware accelerated 3D is a no-no..Some I/O devices are a problem (USB1 speeds only, some bi-directional parallel devices are a pain, CD/DVD burning is not possible AFAIK) Device sharing between guests can be a problem as well.
The guest OS's suffer media performance problems (I think these are even more of a problem on the VMware Server edition) certainly Sound and anything using Direct Video Rendering can be both latent and choppy on the Workstation version I use.
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 01:27:54AM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 00:15 +0100, Mark Ridley wrote:
I'm thinking exactly the same thing. A slimline install of absolutely anything, but nice and secure, with a feature rich virtual Windows install... just kidding! :)
Although to some degree you could just put a skeleton OS on as the Host just to support the Virtual machines and then run your primary OS as a guest alongside any other guests you require. There are some problems with doing this.
This is the nitty gritty stuff that I want to know before committing *too* much time to this project.
Overall VMware's performance is perhaps 75% of the native machines performance (assuming one guest running..Server is supposed to cope better than workstation with multiple guests) Most of the performance differences are I/O bound because you are going through extra layers of abstraction. Later VT releases may help some of this.
75% is probably OK, my new machine is going to be a *lot* faster than my current ones.
You don't have full access to all your hardware from the VM guests. So hardware accelerated 3D is a no-no..Some I/O devices are a problem (USB1 speeds only, some bi-directional parallel devices are a pain, CD/DVD burning is not possible AFAIK) Device sharing between guests can be a problem as well.
3D is just about irrelevant, I don't run any games and very little in the way of graphically intensive programs.
However the other things may be an issue - I certainly do occasionally want to write CDs/DVDs and nearly always do it using Win2k as that's where the data I want to write is. Are you saying that I simply won't be able to do this if Win2k is running as a guest OS?
The USB1 speed may also be an issue, I'm not sure how my Epson V700 will go with only USB1 available.
Where can I find more definite information about this? (I'll have a hunt around the Vmware site anyway).
The guest OS's suffer media performance problems (I think these are even more of a problem on the VMware Server edition) certainly Sound and anything using Direct Video Rendering can be both latent and choppy on the Workstation version I use.
I very rarely use sound, I've never seen it as anything other than a distraction most of the time. I do very occasionally listen to streamed radio on the Internet though and may (or may not) do some LP to CD transfers.
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 08:53:39AM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
Where can I find more definite information about this? (I'll have a hunt around the Vmware site anyway).
Just install it all and see what happens, it won't take a /huge/ amount of time, it's the only way to get a 100% answer. When you get the new machine to install Ubuntu takes perhaps an hour? then to install vmware is another hour and to install Windows is another hour to get them all to a state where you can check hardware support. Even then I think i've overestimated how long the above tasks will take (except maybe the Windows install, but even then most of those tasks aren't exactly ones that require you to be sitting at the machine for the copying files part, at least you could be doing something else).
Adam
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 09:25:16AM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 08:53:39AM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
Where can I find more definite information about this? (I'll have a hunt around the Vmware site anyway).
Just install it all and see what happens, it won't take a /huge/ amount of time, it's the only way to get a 100% answer. When you get the new machine to install Ubuntu takes perhaps an hour? then to install vmware is another hour and to install Windows is another hour to get them all to a state where you can check hardware support. Even then I think i've overestimated how long the above tasks will take (except maybe the Windows install, but even then most of those tasks aren't exactly ones that require you to be sitting at the machine for the copying files part, at least you could be doing something else).
True enough, a [longish] evening's work I suppose. Hopefully I'll have the hardware some time next week.
I'd give serious consideration to getting VMWare running on slackware if that's what you're most comfortable with, but I know a personal project when I see one, so...
I'd probably be looking at SuSE and Ubuntu as my choices, from that list, in this particular context - certainly in terms of hassle-free operation, and also for other considerations like support of newer technologies that may be relevant and so on.
GUIfication, and other matters of default config, I wouldn't be considering very weightily, because whichever one of those distros you used would require refinement in the context you describe.
On Thursday 14 September 2006 09:25, Adam Bower wrote:
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 08:53:39AM +0100, cl@isbd.net wrote:
Where can I find more definite information about this? (I'll have a hunt around the Vmware site anyway).
Just install it all and see what happens, it won't take a /huge/ amount of time, it's the only way to get a 100% answer. When you get the new machine to install Ubuntu takes perhaps an hour? then to install vmware is another hour and to install Windows is another hour to get them all to a state where you can check hardware support. Even then I think i've overestimated how long the above tasks will take (except maybe the Windows install, but even then most of those tasks aren't exactly ones that require you to be sitting at the machine for the copying files part, at least you could be doing something else).
Adam
Also, because it's VMware you could create the windows installation(s) now on your current machine and bung it on a DVD/in a dark recess of your hdd ready, which could save you a long laborious windows install come New Computer Day.
I'd also consider the very real possibility that you may want to use that beast for some meaty, previously unavailable tasks once you have the hardware available to you (I've yet to see the upgrade to a personal machine that doesn't have this effect, heh), so you may want to think carefully about paring the "main" operating system to the bone too much.
It may be a good idea to have a full bells-and-whistles-capable host operating system available, even if its normal running state is very lightweight. Still, if you use Ubuntu or SuSE, I suppose that's what apt is for.
-
Adam Bower -
cl＠isbd.net -
David Reynolds -
Laurie Brown -
Mark Ridley -
Paul -
Ten -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood