I’m so lucky the people at VMWare created a great virtualisation platform that integrates well with the (Windows) desktop. Being a consultant, for my current/new project, I have to use a laptop provided by the company/customer for who I will do the project. I’m allowed to install any software on it. But I’m not allowed to replace the Operating System (Windows XP), as they have some strange agreement with Microsoft. Something like: your staff ‘has’ to use Microsoft software to do their jobs, so all company laptops ‘must’ be installed with Windows XP. Hrmm, strange Microsoft sales people with their strange monopoly strategies. Do they really think to win popularity contests this way? Do they really believe that this way, software developers will consider Microsoft to be a serious company?
So I will install the “software” VMWare player and I will add the software’s configuration data “a Ubuntu Dapper image” to that VMWare “software”. The dudes at IT, at my customer, agreed with that setup. I will be using NAT so that they will not have to care about the Linux OS asking for an IP address nor will they see a new MAC address in their super cool Windows firewalls.
And since the integration with that Windows desktop works smooth, it will not block me a lot from working. The task is upgrading some custom software that was created for Solaris. Can you imagine software developing for Solaris using Windows tools like notepad? At least now I will have GNU gcc and stuff like vim and gmake, heck I’ll even have Anjuta available in that Ubuntu VMWare image. That’s a lot better than having to install a bunch of crazy Windows tools or having to develop on an aged Solaris 2.6 where installing a modern GNOME on is more like a three week adventure than something you do in a few hours.
Thank you VMWare team. Great product. The product ‘really’ makes me much more productive. Yet you guys don’t market bullshit this a lot (like the VS.NET sales guys at Microsoft did and are still doing).