[timdorr]

Is anyone running the opposite setup? That is, Windows as the primary OS and Linux in a VM. I'm looking to upgrade my laptop soon and don't want to pay Apple's high prices, so I'm looking at 1080p Windows laptops.

I'm considering Windows as the base OS and a Linux VM for development stuff. I do web development, including design work, so I would need the ability to run Photoshop and other tools. But for running my ruby stuff (Rails, Spork, etc), I think a Linux VM would be ideal.

Summed up: How do others live in the Rails dev world when not using Mac OS?

[cookiecaper]

I have an associate who recently switched from a Linux host to a Windows host running Linux VMs. He spends almost all of his time in his Linux VMs doing dev work, but finds it very convenient to have the Windows host when he wants to play a game, run Photoshop, or do one of a handful other things that don't have good equivalents on Linux.

It's almost tempting to switch to a set up like that but I don't have the heart for it.

[georgemcbay]

I've got multiple machines like this, they run Windows as the host OS but I spend a lot of time in VMs writing code under Linux (I don't do Rails dev, but lots of Go stuff mostly targeting embedded Linux platforms).

On systems with modern CPUs and plenty of RAM to spare the VMs feel basically the same as native to me, especially when running them in fullscreen modes.

[yareally]

I use Windows most of the time due to needing Visual Studio for some Windows related development as well as wanting to play current games in my free time. I also need Linux tools for web and Android development (mainly Android OS modding/compiling).

I supplement windows with a virtual machine running just a Debian terminal interface with 512mb of ram devoted to it. From that, I can run PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Ngnix or whatever else wouldn't be so great to keep on Windows. The added benefit of that is I keep my development enviroment seperated from the rest of my PC so I don't have to keep all the services running all the time unless I need them.

When I do have the VM on, I just keep it running in the background on one core and don't even notice it's there other than the ssh terminal I interact with in putty. As for other Linux needs, I can get by mostly with using Cygwin + puttycyg[1] for scripting python/perl/bash/etc. Overall, I haven't felt the need to use dual booting in a few years since adopting that approach.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/puttycyg/

[sethhochberg]

I did exactly this for many months, but then realized that I was spending 90% of my time in the VM and it just made more sense to run the linux install native.

My laptop is my development machine, so I usually have my desktop (Windows, since it doubles as a gaming rig) in reach if I need Windows for Photoshop or Visual Studio or something else briefly and don't feel like firing up a VM.

[RegEx]

I don't see any advantage to running the install native. I've actually had more issues in native installs than through VMs.

As a side note, if anyone is interested in running an Ubuntu desktop VM, I highly recommend Lubuntu. It's extremely lightweight and fast, it's perfect for VMs.

[phaus]

How do you configure your VM once you install it? I seem to have a lot of performance issues unless I get a pre-configured VMWare image. The only image I've ever gotten to run as fast as a native install is the Official Backtrack VMware .iso.

I've installed several distributions, including Lubuntu, along with the VMware tools, but I always get really poor performance when I try to set up my own VMs.

[RegEx]

2 processor cores and 2G of memory is all mine needs to perform well. Perhaps my level of "fast enough" is much slower than yours, but my VM doesn't feel any slower than the host.

[phaus]

I have a 2nd gen i7 and 16gb on the host. I think I tried everything up to 8 cores and 4 gb, but it still seems like everything is slow.

So you don't do anything special to optimize it?

[RegEx]

No, nothing at all. I have an ivy bridge i5, 8GB 1600, and two old nvidia geforce 8600 under sli. Perhaps the people at /r/techsupport could help. Full screen in my VM feels just like booting into Ubuntu - no lag at all.

[jjcm]

Honestly, 99% of the time that I want to use linux it's because I want a more powerful command line. My current setup is usually windows/osx as my host system, and a simple putty connection to either a local headless VM, or often one of my linode servers. If you're familiar with vim/emacs, a command line is a perfectly acceptable development environment.

[haddr]

If you go for windows (host) and linux (guest) for dev tools & console stuff you should definitely check CoLinux. It's a very neat virtualisation, where the linux kernel works as another process on widnows, and the performance is really good. However, for the GUI stuff you will need some vnc pipe.

[shelf]

Given that Mac OS straddles these two worlds perfectly well and you're a working professional, why not claim a mac as a tax deduction? (If your jurisdiction allows for that)

As for your question, the answer depends on whether you need the GPU acceleration in your adobe products. If so, you'll obviously want to run them on your host system. Support is getting pretty good but it is not there yet.

Parallels and VMware have both rolled out JIT translation of DX->opengl instructions with a windows guest, which is quite impressive. I doubt this improves your lot, though.

[cookiecaper]

Because Mac OS doesn't straddle the worlds perfectly well. It's definitely more compatible than Windows/Cygwin, but you still spend a lot of time trying to get things to work and/or compile correctly on OS X that would work effectively "out of the box" on a Linux machine. A recent hire has insisted on using a Mac OS workstation and his install time for new tech stacks is through the roof when compared to developers on Linux workstations.

[eaparnell]

Yes, that has been my experience. Most tech stacks I use install better under Linux. Even if I were using a Mac as the host OS, I will still run Linux as a VM.

[RegEx]

I have a Windows host and Lubuntu guest. I love the setup. It's perfect for gaming and dev.

[rjzzleep]

i wish power management was better in linux, and optimus was supported in xen. because then I would run xen on an optimus laptop, and then just start the right vm whenever I need it.

my ultramobile cpu actually supports vt-d, but so far it's completely useless