Hola,

I'm not a pure 'newbie' to Linux - I just don't have an opportunity to use it as my OS of choice because of the windows-based work I do as well as the applications I own.

HOWEVER, I want to change this. I work with many designer & video editing programs which are part of - Adobe's Masters Collection, Expression Studio; along with SharePoint Designer. My laptop is an intel-based x64 core i5 running Win7 on one side and Fedora 14 - on the other. My work station is the same w/core i9.

I know SAMBA and WINE can accommodate my requirement to run window-based apps on fedora but so can running a VM with the appropriate OS and installing the software.

Does anyone have a recommendation of what would work best with my needs?

I am a developer and work with JAVA, PHP and .NET as well as with MSSQL, mySQL and ORACLE - for the back-end.

My concern is how to accommodate .NET/MSSQL.

My new years resolution for 2011 is to go Linux all the way; instead of dual-booting. w00t!!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Samba, as you are probably aware, is (from the man page):
Virtual machines, on the other hand, support complete operating system installations that run "as-if" installed directly on a server.

With virtual machine software installed on a Linux host -- such as VirtualBox or VMware -- you then install, say, Win7 as a virtual machine. You can also install other operating systems as additional virtual machines on the same Linux host and start and use any one (or more, depending upon your available RAM and disk) as if you'd booted them from a server cold start.

Although I favor a "clean," from-scratch, installation of Microsoft software, it is possible to copy an existing Windows installation (using freely-available software from VMware) that "virtualizes" the installation and makes it possible to simply load the virtualized copy into a virtual hard disk and away you pretty much go.

Fact is, if you install VirtualBox on a Linux host, then install Windows as a guest operating system, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish any difference in performance (well, maybe a little) or capabilities. Too, you can "snapshot" a virtual machine so that when Windows craps its pants (which you know it probably will), you can in a minute or two be back up and running (that's kind nice, eh). Sorry, I've had too many bad experiences with Microsoft for far too long...

Anyway, I can highly recommend VirtualBox and

Hope this helps some.

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With such hot machines why not run a VM? They would run linux at or above native speeds and at same time as W7. I can't see why anyone would dual boot unless some odd connection deal or special card in buss.

VirtualBox Shared Folders are an alternative to Samba; they seem a little quicker but I have not done any measurements.

When VirtualBox Guest Additions software is installed in the guest you can cut/copy and paste between host and guest but this is text only.

If you want to shift your working habits from Windows to Linux then Linux host and Windows guest is better than the other way round.

1 members found this post helpful.

Awesomeness! Thanx all for the deliciously nutritious information :0)

RE: SAMBA
I really didn't have a good handle on this so I appreciate your post Tronayne!

RE: VirtualBox

I've played with VirtualBox earlier in the year and ran into problems with it on Win7 [not really surprised]. It wouldn't pick up the ISO and I couldn't install the additions until there was an OS for it to 'know' about... This is why I turned to VMWare. But with all those flavors.. I sort of gave up trying to find the right solution. I opted for VMWorkstation which runs well [as expected]. However, I will revisit VirtualBox.

RE: Dual Boot
I chose to go this route because I really didn't have time to dive into finding out how to run windows apps on Linux. But I'm one semester from graduation [MS in Software Engineering] and find I have time to 'think about non-academic' stuff :0)

So in the end - Virtualization wins!

Wish me well.

I'll be reconfiguring my office space so that I can run dual or triple heads :0) Last time I tried this I ended up compiling a BUNCH of xorg drivers :0)

If I run into trouble - I now know where to come!!

Peace and Joy!

/r