[CALUG] SuSE and Ubuntu dual boot

[Rajiv Gunja]

Russell,
I can understand why you would be confused. Yes, most of my work I do
without the use of MS Windows. But there are certain programs, I use which
does not exist on Linux yet.

VMware is not owned by Microsoft yet. VMware was bought over by EMC Corp.
MS's product which is vaguely similar to VMware is Virtual PC. I have used
it, trust me, it is no where close to the capabilities as VMware.

I am an Unix Admin. All the work I do is over ssh or sftp. I use gaim for my
IM, Linux VPN client from Nortel (apani) to login to my office. I use Lotus
Notes over WINE. OpenOffice for document editing. When I login to office or
at office, I am forced to use IE for accessing my local intranet website. I
tried IE on WINE, but the java plugins and macromedia plugins crash at the
loading time itself. Enter VMware. I have MS Windows XP Professional running
as guest. Lotus Notes Sametime which is my office standard IM, does not work
well with Linux, so I have to run that under VMware. All Chat conversations
I have, I have to save it to Disk. Enter Samba Mount. I save my chat
conversations (ascii text) on to my Samba mounts. If I need to save a web
document, I print it to a PDF (PDF-Creator) and then save it to my samba
mount.

Yes, even though I cant stand using MS Windows, I have to use it. I do
photo-editing, flash web-page designs, DVD authoring, DVD burning. I tried
to use Gimp for a long time. Yes it is awesome for small touch-ups, but not
as advanced as Adobe Photoshop. Yes I have tried running Adobe Photoshop on
WINE, it works, but it is very unstable. Adobe GO-Live and Adobe
After-Effects, wont even install under WINE, so I have to use Windows, since
I spent all that money buying these products.

Yes there are 1000's of products for Linux out there under Open Source
(hence my email ID), but there is still something missing. I have been a
Linux fanatic since 1994-1995, yet I have to say, there is still couple of
things missing for a Linux desktop. If the products I use or something
similar to them are available on Linux, I would purge my Windows OS
completely off my PC, but I cant, I have to use them, even if it is under
VMware.

For the Company I work for, I support over 2800 SUN servers in a team of 14
& 600 Linux servers in a team of 3. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and
Open Source.

So, there you have it, my reason for hating Windows and not being able to
live entirely without it.

-GGR

---
Rajiv G Gunja
System Analyst / Engg
SUN / AIX / HPUX / Linux Admin
IM: AOL / Yahoo / MSN : ggvrsn

On 10/24/05, Russell Evans <russell-evans at qwest.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 11:20:23 -0400
> "Rajiv Gunja" <opn.src.rocks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > See, I dont beleive in sharing windows and linux partitions. If at
> > all I need to write, I have captive-ntfs installed, so I can mount
> > the NTFS partition with RW access. With Xandros as my desktop, I dont
> > need to mount the NTFS partitions, by default, they are mounted when
> > the OS is installed and made available to root. With some editing
> > skills, we can get the normal user to mount and use them too (vi
> > on /etc/fstab).
>
> But if you need a file from the linux side when you are in MS Windows
> what do you do? Really most of the files issues I've seen with dual
> boots are email related. Someone needs a file, but it is in the email
> client's mail store, and the only way to get at it is to boot into the
> other OS, run the client and save the file.
>
> I forgot about the persuasiveness of USB thumb drives these days
> too. If you have one, you don't really need fat32 partition on the
> hard drive. My bad.
>
> > The main reason I dont like sharing is that, a trojan, which is
> > written for a dual boot desktop, will see its way into linux from the
> > shared fat32 partition.
>
> I agree it could get to the shared partition, but I don't see how
> it would get executed. You'll have to educate me on that.
>
> > As long as we keep windows and windows programs far from linux, we
> > will be safe.
>
> I'm a bit more paranoid so I don't see any practice as really safe.
> More like safe enough, if anything, but it's not like I trust my
> knowledge to even say safe enough :-) I am always looking for someone
> explain something I just don't see. There is so much to learn and so
> little time.
>
> > For me, windows is not worth running on my computer, so it runs under
> > VMware only.
>
> Doesn't Microsoft own VMware now? So you trust Microsoft products
> enough to let them run on your Linux machines? OK.
>
> >So from VMware, I mount my local linux directories via
> > samba.
>
> Wait a minute, I'm confused; you're allowing Windows access to your
> Linux directories via samba, but you think a shared partition, that
> doesn't have system binaries on it, isn't safe? Are we talking read
> only or something? I'm very confused.
>
> > Ofcourse, not many people can be without windows, neither can I.
> > Since there are certain programs which works only on windows.
>
> Having had to come back into the MS world after a long period of
> working outside of it, it seems to me there are more Linux tools that
> don't run on MS Windows than the other way around.
>
> I see my coworkers doing things in Windows, but doing those things so
> inefficiently, that I really wonder if anyone has really looked at
> the TCO of using MS Windows, or maybe even OSX in a business. I watch my
> coworkers transfer output by hand to paper because they can't copy it
> digitally, I see them eye grepping because they can't search a file for
> multiple things at once. I see them miss the thing they are looking
> for using "find" with it's search up or search down stupidity. I
> see so many MS Windows programs that just barely make it to
> "useful", but hardly any that make it to "make my job easier".
>
> Sorry, I'll give up the soap box now. My bad.
>
> Thank you
> Russell
>



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