Testing out distributions/software / Playing around with things (Was: [ILUG] Thanks)

[Jeroen Massar]

Thomas Meehan wrote:
[..]
> I'm hoping that the more user friendly Ubuntu will help me over come these
> obstacles and allow me to get to grips with Linux.

In these cases (testing out new software and just playing around and
also quite a number of other cases) VM's are very very helpful, thus if
you are a Windows user then using a VM saves you some problems, so that
you can become more familiar with the new system before moving over
completely; VMware Server (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/) is
free for download and is perfect for testing out new programs/systems
and in effect everything. You can also abuse it to run gNewSense in, as
the VM that VMware provides is completely supported without binary
firmware. This thus gives you a nice free system to play with but still
allows you the stuff you are used to in the Windows part.

One can even use both at the same time then (memory/cpu allowing ;) by
having a Cygwin X server running on the Windows part and opening xterms
from your VM on the Windows part, perfectly mixing the two together
allowing one to use the best of both worlds.

It all depends of course where one needs a box for; if you need it
specifically to server thousands of files then go for a native box, if
you only need to play around and test a bit a VM is perfect.

Of course if one has a Linux box, using Xen/Vmware/etc there one can
also test out other things.

Greets,
 Jeroen

  (who has on his x60 a dualboot option:
    XP as native, Debian in a vm (best of both worlds), or
    Debian as native, for when I need the pure power
    done using 2 partitions: XP, Debian)