virtualbox « Bill & Kathy Logan

If I Have a Hobby…

Linux Mint Desktop

… it is messing with computers and the Linux operating system (gave up on Microsoft back in the 3.o era). We’ve got three computers. Two are laptops: an old Hewlett Packard (which we thought got injured from bouncing around in the cab of my eighteen wheeler), and a Dell XPS m1530, bought while I was still trucking, and equipped with a solid state hard drive to be more durable. We also have a Dell Inspiron desktop computer.

Kathy needed a convenient way to view a DVD while doing her Pilates. So I decided to fire up the HP and see if I could install a light weight Linux distribution on it which included a CD/DVD player. I installed Puppy Linux 5.2, and much to my surprise it is a fully functioning computer which we were not even able to use with Windoze XP. Not only can she play her DVD, but it has all of the software and capabilities which we need, as well as internet access. The problem was apparently Windows, and not the hardware. (Why didn’t I think of that sooner?)

We have used the Ubuntu distribution of Linux for years, and were set to use 10.04 LTS for a while longer (LTS means “long term support”, which is currently 3 years). However, we developed some display and connection issues on the desktop which were nothing more than annoying, but annoying enough to get me looking into alternatives. I decided to give Linux Mint 10 (Julia), which is a lighter weight, Ubuntu based distro a spin. I use a home partition for personal files, which permits me to install different operating systems on the same computer (known as dual booting) while having access to the same personal file system. So I installed Linux Mint along side Ubuntu 10.04, and liked it so much that I installed it on the Dell laptop as well.

If you are familiar with virtual machines, you know that VMWare and VirtualBox are two popular virtual machine programs. They essentially allow you to run an operating system within an operating system.

When I was trucking, I ran Linux on a Toshiba Satellite laptop (which I bought on the road at Walmart when the HP died; Angela now uses it) and used a VMWare virtual machine to run Windows XP for the software requiring the Microsoft os. It worked very well. But it wasn’t until recently that I really got interested in VirtualBox.

"Squares" Background, Awn launcher, Conky Monitor

Now I’m running four different virtual machines on my Dell laptop under Linux Mint 10. It’s really cool. It allows me to get the feel for different Linux distributions without having to mess with hard disks.

So at the moment I’m running the latest release of Ubuntu (11.04 beta; the stable version is due to be released next week), openSuse 11.4, Debian 6.0.1a, and Arch Linux (which is really fun, because it’s like building one’s own system). Though according to DistroWatch Fedora is currently the third most popular Linux distro, I tried and do not much care for it.

Screenshots of VirtualBox Machines