Mark Pilgrim: One year ago, I switched to Linux for a variety of reasons revolving around software freedom, choice, and data preservation.
I just realized that my switch was just over two years ago, though my reasons were different, and my switch was not as crisp. In April of 2005, I installed Ubuntu on my laptop, but mostly worked near my Windows desktop for a few weeks. In May, I installed Ubuntu as dual boot. But I found that I never boot back into windows.
While my Windows desktop spends most of its time in hibernate mode, it does get used a few times a week:
My primary use is for calendaring. My official work calendar is based on Lotus Notes, and while it has always seemed that the next version will support Linux directly, and while some have reported some success, and some hassles using Wine; I’ve avoided that path. So, I’ll check my calendar a few times a week, but mostly I survive based on email and IM.
Every couple of months, I’ll travel (though less so, recently). The online reservation system is limited to IE 5.5 and higher, and the expense account application is (or was, the last time I checked) an IE only Java application.
A few times a year, I’ll test out IE compatibility for some website or script, or play with something new, like Silverlight. But these are the exceptions rather than the norm. Most of the things I want to play with work on Linux.
Once a year, I’ll fill out my taxes using a commercial software package.
What have I missed out on in these two years? The only thing I can recall is Joost.
I use Notes 6.5 at work through Wine. There are a few annoying bugs (most notably that some (not all) icons appear without any colours (just black)), but works just fine when you get it set up (main problem is copying over libs that aren’t completed in wine).
If you submit your taxes electronically, your tax company already has your tax info, so I just do it on the web. It whines that you’re not using Windows or Mac, but (as long as you’re using Firefox anyway), it works just fine. This was the second year I’ve done this.
As for the rest, yeah, VMware is your friend. Both Server (free) and Workstation ($200/$100 full/academic) will allow you to boot straight from disk in your VM. The main catch is that you have to have installed the SCSI driver under XP (and they only provide a floppy image for the install, so you have to actually use a floppy and boot your actual hardware into Windows to install, unless you want to re-install in which case the floppy image should just be able to be linked into your VM as a floppy drive and Windows will set it up on the install). Once the SCSI driver is installed, you’re golden. I personally use Server at my internship to boot the corporate Windows load in VMware (I’d use Workstation but I don’t think they want to spend $200 for me to avoid Windows. ;)
i still keep a Windows box around for some tasks, but meet the IE requirement using CrossOver Office. we use QuickBooks Online, which requires IE, and rather than boot into Windows for that i use an emulated instance of the browser.
has worked acceptably well thus far, although Microsoft’s invoicing system has issues with it.
One of these days, I’ll get around to putting some kind of virtualization on my Linux box. Meanwhile, I only boot into Windows to get episodes of Lost from iTunes.
Sam, I’ve been running Notes 7 using the Workplace managed client for ages now. Its packaged up for Ubuntu on one of the LTC sites - I’ll dig out a link and forward it internally if you’re interested.
Did you have luck getting Flash to work on Ubuntu? Or do you simply live a life deprived of Youtube? Personally I use my Windows machine when someone sends me a video to watch. After many, many efforts, and some help from experienced friends, I’ve still not been able to get Flash to work on my Ubuntu machine (possibly a problem with my particular graphics card acceleration).
I tried KVM, but no VT support on my machine. Xen messed up with the system clock and network card. QEMU worked well, but far from perfect and slow. Eventually I landed on VMWare Server. Installation was easy(*), you can run it full screen on in a window, most apps runs as fast as native Windows, and you can access your Linux drive through SMB. I highly recommend it.
With a bit of Googling, you can even boot OS/X on VMWare.
(*) VMWare officially supports only several flavors of Linux, but there’s an unofficial vmware-any-to-any patch that will make it run recent releases of Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
Not to be too much of a Mac fanboy, but I’ve had very good luck running OS X as my primary environment. Parallels runs XP just fine when I have to do XP stuff (which is primarily just IE compatibility testing in my case). Granted there’s the “Mac hardware tax” which is that a) you can’t get exactly the right configuration that you can get from the myriad non-Mac hardware vendors, and b) it’s significantly more expensive than the dirtest-cheapest non-Mac laptop or desktop you can get. In your case, Parallels on OS X might actually be nicer for you because you can make your Notes app appear to be running on the Mac desktop (and command-tab between windows, the clipboard, etc. works).
I also run Ubuntu (and FreeBSD) in Parallels also which works fine.
I. Don’t. Compile. Anything. I have 902 packages installed, and 0 compilers. Everything I need is already packaged. — Mike Pilgrim, One year with Linux It’s been a year since Mike Pilgrim switched to Ubuntu. If you don’t already...
I managed to get the travel reservation system working on IE6 running in Wine. The expense app launched just fine (after a few unexplained false starts) from native Firefox on Linux. Hope that helps!
I use Notes 6.5 at work through Wine. There are a few annoying bugs
Given my usage, I’m not overly interested in a solution based on Wine. My experience is that such solutions are temperamental.
If you submit your taxes electronically, your tax company already has your tax info, so I just do it on the web.
Definitely interested. URI?
Sam, I’ve been running Notes 7 using the Workplace managed client for ages now. Its packaged up for Ubuntu on one of the LTC sites
I just installed ibm-workplace from “LUD storm stable”. Here's what I get. I may be weird, but I’m not interested in investing time into getting unofficial solutions working for an application I use only a couple of times a week; particularly when I have a perfectly good, officially supported, configuration available to me. I’ll even adjust my usage downwards of applications that are not officially supported on my chosen distribution.
Did you have luck getting Flash to work on Ubuntu?
I’ve run IE just fine under wine. And if you spend a couple bux for the crossover office version you can run MS Office (no real reason anymore as OpenOffice is now acceptable), IE and Lotus Notes with minimum hassle and support even. I of course have no reason for such things, but when I did it was great :-)
The only difference for me is that I have VNC installed on my Windows Desktop, so I never actually have to physically touch a system running Windows.
Reminds me of the good old days when people had both PC’s and VTxxx/3270/5250 terminals on their desk, you know, for those quirky apps that just hadn’t migrated into the new world order yet.
The only difference for me is that I have VNC installed on my Windows Desktop, so I never actually have to physically touch a system running Windows.
Which VNC? Real? Tight? Ultra? (Who comes up with these names?)
This sounds perfect for me, as every application runs in a supported environment. Or at least did, until I realized that my Windows desktop machine spends most of its life in hibernation...
Three and a half years ago, I was as wrong as it's humanly possible to be
Roughly three and a half years ago, I wrote a blog entry titled “Why Linux has failed, and why Linux will fail again”. Roughly two years ago, I switched — to the operating system I claimed had failed, and would fail again. Linux. Ubuntu to be...
I’d switch too, if World of Warcraft ran at the same speed in Linux as in Windows. Perhaps when I do my next big PC upgrade, I will have enough of both GPU and CPU cycles to spare that WoW will run good enough in Linux. If so, I’ll do the switch too.
Does anyone know if Parallels for Linux works as seamlessly with Windows applications as it does on OS X?
Wow, I switched to linux 6 years ago. The accounting package at my previous employer meant that W2k lived on but if we’d had QEMU back then, that workstation would have been running linux too. These days my sole use of Windows is booting a win2k image under QEMU to check IE6 compatibility or to sandbox (QCOW ;-)) the needless use of javascript in online order forms.
W2k under QEMU with kqemu and one of the blackbox shells performs better on modern hardware than a typical desktop from 6 years ago (until it hits swap). I’ve even taken to doing server development within a QEMU image and I’ll probably look at it for deployment when KVM matures.
There’s no way I’d keep a dedicated Windows desktop machine around in 2007, unless I was into 3D or making heavy use of Microsoft’s web development platform.
You can eliminate your Windows Tax Software dependency by using TaxACT. I have used them for the past 3 years, this past year was my first non-Windows year so I used their online service. No problems and cheap, $16 for Fed and State e-file. - [link]
I. Don’t. Compile. Anything. I have 902 packages installed, and 0 compilers. Everything I need is already packaged. — Mark Pilgrim, One year with Linux It’s been a year since Mark Pilgrim switched to Ubuntu. If you don’t already...