[GTALUG] VM decisions for school laptop..

[Michael Galea]

On 04/11/18 22:27, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> | From: Michael Galea via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> 
> The following is an idiosycratic reaction to your question.  Not
> exactly an answer and not exactly reliable.
> 
> | He can use both OS's but is probably more familiar with Win, and his courses
> | mandate a number of windows only tools. I'm heading in the direction of
> | booting Win10 and using a VM running Debian.
> 
> I'm pretty lazy.  If I were your son, I'd use just one OS until there
> was a very good reason to run the other.  And it would almost never
> come up.
> 
> Do you have a good example of why he would bother firing up Linux?

I imagine he will want to run the Linux instance in the background so he 
can get access to a personal git server.

The course he is taken is in game design and it is mixed Windows/Linux, 
so what he actually uses the Linux for will be mandated by the school.
I myself would push him completely to Linux but for:
1) Some game design systems have sole support or better support under 
Windows (according to him),
2) Windows seems to be his preferred development target,
3) He plays a lot (too many really) games on Windows.

> 
> You missed your chance to brainwash him: you had to start earlier.  I
> succeeded with my kids :-)
> 
Well, he did come to my work to pick up some professional development 
working in C on Linux, so he's not inexperienced.  He can still be 
turned from the dark side.

> My (adult) kids do boot to Windows for two things: games and playing
> back protected streaming content (on a dedicated HDTV).  We also boot to
> Windows to run tax preparation software.
> 
We have 5 dedicated Linux machines in the home, 3 are always on. (I am 
not counting the multitude of tablets and embedded Linux devices, only 
things I upgrade on a regular basis).
We have one Windows machine is entirely dedicated to games, but runs 
Chrome, Thunderbird, Libreoffice and the Gimp instead of whatever 
Microsoft runs). I would ditch Windows 10 if Wine was good enough.

And there is my Son's Windows machine, whatever is on that (shudders).

> Having two OSes as "home" is kind of schizophrenic.  It requires
> developing twice the skills and experiencing twice the annoying
> puzzles.  It may not be a good use of a student's time.
> 
> It's also best to have the same OS as your associates: sharing
> documents and expertise.  Libreoffice is almost good enough as an MS
> Office clone.
> 
> | As per laptop specs, I am figuring on getting something with a late model
> | Intel i7, 32 GB RAM, and 1-2TB storage. I figure many laptops must meet this
> | spec.  Is there anything else I should be looking for?
> 
> I now think that an ultrabook is better for students: easy to carry,
> long battery life.  256G of SSD and 8G of RAM is fine now, I think.  I
> love having a great screen.
> 
Good point, but I suspect that the laptop should be meaty enough to play 
the things he develops on it.  He uses unity and recommendations for 
building a dev machine range from 8-32 GB.

> An external drive left at home/residence may be a great way to keep
> archives safe.
> 
He can always rsync from the residence to the (family) home for backup.

> But kids these days actually may be shedding notebooks for phones.  So
> maybe a stays-at-home beefy "gaming" notebook might be better.  And
> archives are for the cloud (scares me on a couple of levels).
> 
> Then again, in some crowds, cool kids have some kind of MacBook.  It
> has UNIX underneath but most folks never look.
> ---


Thanks to all the subsequent commenters!  Summarizing:
1) Don't forget VirtualBox, it works well. Some say try Hyper-V since it 
is native. But then he would need Windows Professional, hmmm.
2) Make sure the processor support Intel's VT-x for 64 bit development.
3) Consider an SSD.
4) Some say 8GB memory is enough, some favour 32GB. The university 
recommends 8GB at minimum.
5) It was pointed out has Microsoft has "Linux subsystem for Windows", 
but its command line only.

Thanks!

-- 
Michael Galea