Linux as VM Host
 

Hi,

I make my living developing software. I currently use a mid 2012 Mac Air running Fusion VM Ware with Win 10 guest(s) OSs. I do this for the fast booting and no virus drama of OS X. I work all day in the VMs as my customers are 100% MS users. I'm not comfortable with Win 10 as my primary OS for a couple of reasons. I've had bad experiences with Windows pushing half baked updates and worse the same for my IDE Visual Studio (currently using VS 15). With VMs I can test the veracity of updates/extensions/whatever in one VM before including it in my current working one.

Would a Linux laptop be a great host for my VMs? I'm willing to put in the time to learn Linux, however I would need the VMs to work just as well/seamlessly as they do on my current laptop.

Thank you so much for you patience and thoughts!

I don't see why not Linux has outstanding support for virtualization.. I would use a Debian based distro like Mint or Ubuntu.. To be certain after you installed Linux you could sudo apt-get install cpu checker then use the kvm-ok command to see if theres any issues running virtualization software.. Also the vim or emacs text editors I hear are the best programming environments

I see that VMWare, one I'm familiar with, has a product "Workstation for Linux" sounds like what I'm looking for.

As a Linux newbie, it seems one good option would be to buy a laptop Linux already on it?

I will agree that Linux will be able to handle what you want. As to which distro to use, there are many many choices. For newcomers I have to agree that you should look at Ubuntu as the community support is huge.

You can, there's System76 that comes with Linux, but downloading Linux is not hard at all, provided you're using a distribution that's had it's secure boot modules signed by Microsoft, such as Mint and Ubuntu.. But you just download the .iso image from the Linux distribution of choice and burn it on to a CD, pop that sucker in and bam Linux..

I like linux but if you are happy doing what you have then why change?

Most of what you know in macos may be of value to you in linux.

Also not sure if I ever heard of any speed comparisons between a modern Mac/macos and a modern amd/linux running a VM. Many of the newest servers have exceptional support hardware wise for VM's. Some of that could be available in higher end laptops.

I need a new laptop now. I really like what I saw MS come out with... The Surface Book with performance base. Problem for me is I've seen MS over promise and under deliver too many times. I'd have to wait until I'm convinced and I don't have the time. I also don't want Win 10 as my primary OS.

After watching the presentation on Apple's "new" MacBook Pro, I'm sad and disappointed. They clearly missed the "Pro" part IMHO.

So here I am.

You could buy pretty much any HP branded laptop and install Linux on it without any problems. You have your choice of VMWare, Virtualbox, KVM, or Xen as your hypervisor. As you're already familiar with VMWare I would probably stick with that.

As for distros, I am more partial to Fedora or Debian Testing (currently running Fedora 24), but as this is a production machine I wouldn't recommend Debian Testing as it does experience the occasional bug from time to time. I find Fedora to be a very good work OS, and stable enough while staying up with the newest software versions.

If stability is of utmost importance to you, I would go with the Debian stable release, currently Debian 8.

"I've used Slack, Gentoo, Mepis, Debian, Ubuntu, RH, SuSE, Libranet, Arch. Which one is the best? All of them." :)

VMWare Workstation is very picky about which which versions of which linux distros it will install on. I had to switch to virtualbox, which produces a virtual Windows guest that works well. But if you install a distro and version that VMWare is compatible to, then Workstation might also work.

I saw a web page that said if you wanted the newest Mac then get the Surface and be happier. After I looked that the cost I decided I can't afford either.

For what it's worth, I'm running a (uhh, even older) Mac, which uses VirtualBox as its virtual-machine engine.

Long ago, I dumped VMWare into the toilet ... :D ... and never once looked back.

If it were me, I would switch from VMWare to VirtualBox as my virtual-machine solution, but keep OS/X as the underlying foundation OS.

Then, go ahead and create a VM that runs Linux ... let's say, Ubuntu. "Kick the tires" for a while as you get accustomed to how Linux operates (after all, OS/X is a Unix system ...).

If you continue to think seriously about switching to a Linux platform as your "new foundation," I suggest that you buy a machine from Goodwill or from a pawn shop, strip it clean, install [Ubuntu] on that machine, and then put VirtualBox on that, and clone your existing VMs onto it. Now, running the two of them side-by-side, see how you like it.

Point being ... "you never have to jump off of a cliff." You never have to put yourself into any situation where you are swimming in an ocean, a hundred feet below dry-land, wondering how and where to find a rope. :D

"Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, RH, SuSE," Might be my choices for professional use.

Sierra wasn't listed as supported on Virtual Boxe's site.

I downloaded Ubuntu and using vmware fusion easily created an Ubuntu VM. Seems to be running fine. After restarting post vmware tools install: 50 seconds from starting the VM to surfing the Internet.

It's implied as it based on Ubuntu, and I think Mint is the most Windows-like Linux distro (in terms of looks)