VMWare on Ubuntu

Well I have been using my new Ubuntu laptop for almost 3 weeks now exclusively and it has been working great. I am still developing on my desktop machine remotely via VNC but I also installed VMWare for Linux to develop at home without having to resort to dual booting.

So far I am very impressed with VMWare on my Ubuntu Dapper Drake installation, the install went smoothly and the Windows 2000 virtual machine is fast and flawless, given I will not be able to play games using the virtual machine but for development it works just fine.

When I want to play games I would probably just dual boot or get hold of Cedega.

Mozilla Thunderbird

I really like Mozilla Firefox so I decided to use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client. Unfortunately Mozilla Thunderbird seems unable to communicate with my companies Exchange Server, something Evolution has no problem doing.

This is really sad because Evolution's interface is not as catchy as Thunderbird's but until Thunderbird fixes the Exchange incompatiblity I will be forced to use Evolution.

Ubuntu Dapper Drake Switch

So I finally switched to Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I am currently dual booting just to keep my options open, but I am currently only booting Ubuntu and no Windows at all.

To do my work I remote terminal to my Windows Desktop to develop in my Microsoft IDE. Until I start working on the Java side of our product I will be developing on my Desktop machine via remote access.

Sounds complex but isn't really, now I am able to keep work baggage off my machine, no more compulsory anti software installed on my laptop because it is company policy.

I managed to get everything I used to using up and running, and so far I have no dependency on Windows anymore except for my .NET development. The Visual Studio 2005 IDE is still my favourite IDE to develop in, but that is where the remote desktop comes in. I may consider a VM to eliminate the whole desktop entirely for development but that I still need to think over.

Ubuntu Dapper Drake

Being South African I am very attracted to the name Ubuntu but liking a name does not make the OS good enough. I decided to give Ubuntu Dapper Drake a try in my everyday development shores.

I have a very complex setup going now. I am using Dapper Drake inside my VM. Having a dual monitor setup all my Windows apps are running in the secondary window and my Dapper Drake OS is running on my primary display.

This allows me to develop on Dapper Drake whilst still remaining compatible with all my colleagues. I am planning to do my Java development using Eclipse on Dapper Drake and my .NET development on standard Windows XP and Visual Studio 2005.

So far it has not been to eventful but the compile speed of my Eclipse environment inside a VM might give me a headache.