Anybody using Vista yet?

[cd34]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

I am dying of curiousity to know what you use now and what you contemplate using in the future.

Currently I have a Toshiba Laptop running Debian Linux. I carry around a duplicate environment to the web servers we manage, plus I run X on top so I have a graphical interface. I can develop code on my laptop and not worry about path changes, etc. I run VMware to run Windows 98 for quickbooks.

However, there are problems with Linux. It doesn't suspend or hibernate (I haven't spent enough time figuring out how to get it to work). I have to be really careful what external hardware I get, what drivers may not work, etc. Wireless cards & modems are always fun to shop for.

So, that brings me to the current situation. I know I don't have the time to tweak, poke and prod the laptop I have into working 100%. I could run debian under vmware/parallels on a vista or XP powered laptop, but, I spend 99% of my time in ssh or a shell session. While virtualization is nice, I would prefer to be natively in a unix/linux environment and virtualize the windows component if I need.

However, I can buy a macbook with a core2duo, which supports the VT bit, and run Windows (and presumably debian) under parallels. All the hardware works out of the box, I have a similar development environment (apple os/x runs bsd unix) and then I can test on the debian virtual. Quickbooks is available for mac, so, I could run that natively. The other alternative that I am considering is running debian on the macbook, and running Xen (www.xensource.com) as the hypervisor, and then run Vista & OS/X and Debian as 'guests'. I could run qemu, but, I think Xen is a bit more mature.

I do realize that I could buy a vista laptop where everything works right out of the box and probably save some cash. But, I lose that native development platform. I've used linux as my desktop OS since Oct 2001. Short of quickbooks, and my old scanner, I haven't used windows on my desktop since.

I've rambled and bored people long enough... and totally derailed the topic. Sorry emma