This is actually the first blog entry of mine…
As a part of my studies, I have to study a subject called ‘Data Communication & Computer Networks III’ which involves some socket programming in Linux OS. I didn’t have a Linux OS installed, since it was just a few months from my last system format. I like Linux but hate what needs to be done to install it! It’s just a mess I don’t like to see. So I was looking for alternatives…. Way back I found ‘Ubuntu’ live CD which does not need any installation. It still doesn’t have all the capabilities I’m looking for. Then I found KNOPPIX, which is pretty good still a little slow since it was also running through a CD.
One day my a good friend of mine told me something about a software which could run other OS on my normal OS as an application. From this day onwards I never installed any other OS directly on to my machine! Virtual machines are soo cool!!! You would first define your virtual machine inside the application, turn it on then install what ever OS. The OS is actually installed in to a folder!! If something goes wrong, just delete the folder. It’s that simple!! Still there might be a slight performance issue if you have a slow machine.
First I had ‘Fedora Core 3’ on a virtual machine, which was extremely slow (took about 5 to 8 mins to start up). Then another friend told me that Fedora 4 runs pretty fast on the virtual machines. I didn’t believe it first but after installing it I was shocked! It took only about 1 min 30 sec to load!!!!
For those who haven’t tried it out yet… I recommend ‘VMware Workstation’. Try it! You’ll fall in love with it!
