Also tonight I have installed VMWare Server on my Debian Etch laptop. After my last attempt, when Etch was still Testing and the kernel headers were conspicuous by their absence, I was surprised with the ease with which it installed.
This has given me a cunning plan for my new workstation at work... I have just purchased a HP ML350 G3 to use as a workstation and I think I will now install Debian Etch onto that too so that I get the groovy eye candy and the power of Linux. My Windows admin tasks could then be performed in a VM running Windows Server. My idea of running Server is so that I can install Citrix and connect in to that remotely to access things - rather than using the generic server farm that I would have to share with all the other lusers ;-)
Now I just need to find a PCI-X dual-head graphics card with 3D capability to run my twin NEC MultiSync LCDs :-D
Part 2 will tell of my success ;-)
4 comments:
Yes, I did this a little while ago at work. Since there is a lot of Linux systems here it's easier for me to manage/compile things for them if I have a Linux Desktop. Not to mention it works better!
Regarding VMware for admin tasks, I find that while I do use the WinXP install I have set up, I more often just rdesktop into a windows server. It's faster and doesn't bog down my machine as much.
VMWare tends to get used when I want to test something. Either some particular tool, application or distro. So it's still worth doing it anyway.
The things that I generally need to do are 'fiddleinglg' with AD Users & Computers - password changes, email admin (Exchange), etc.
I usually have a Citrix session open for administering the farm so Citrix in a VM should help with that.
I tend to rdesktop into a server for those sorts of jobs.
Why not use the Linux Citrix client? Or does it suck?
I don't have all the tools on all the servers and I try not to be remote into the servers unless I need to.
The Citrix client works well once you fix the bugs and ignore the warnings (see earlier post).
I'm quite greedy and would like more power to yself so a virtual server just for me will give me that. It will also mean that applications that I only license for me (e.g. Visio) can be installed without breaking license agreements. I can also break the server without affecting the application for others.
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