Why dualboot when you can run linux in a VM, though?

-f0dder (August 09, 2012, 12:17 PM)

This is how I do it. I run Win7 x64 with Debian Linux running in VMWare Player. I have shared folders set up and most of my Debian home folder is symlinked to folders on my Windows drive. I use Unity so my Linux apps show up on my Windows desktop with my Win7 programs (Autohotkey hot strings work in my Linix programs this way). I drag Linux programs off the "Start Menu" VMWare Player provides in Unity mode to create shortcuts which I use in a True Launch Bar Linux menu and place in a directory that FARR searches so I can just type "konsole", "kate", "word", or whatever in FARR and start whatever software I wish whether it is Windows software or Linux software. It's very nice as for the most part Windows and Linux blend fairly seamlessly. I'd never go back to dual booting again (unless I was doing 3D graphics work on the Linux side).

My system isn't a monster. It an HP Pavilion p6720f I paid about $500 for in Spring 2011. RAM upgraded to 12GB from the standard 6GB, however.

Which is fine. But what I (and my clients) don't appreciate is Microsoft's refusal to categorically state what the long term plans for the desktop are once Win8/Metro goes gold. (And by Metro i mean the whole walled garden environment every tech company seems hell bent on copying from Apple if they can possibly get away with it.) So if there's unwarranted confusion and concern, it's largely how Microsoft's been playing it so coy that's caused it.

-40hz (December 22, 2011, 09:11 AM)

I'm advising my business clients not to buy any app they will use in their business from an app store where the owner of the store can kill apps already purchased. No business in their right mind should want any applications -- especially applications that are or might become "business critical" -- that someone can kill switch at any time. That's like giving someone a kill switch for your business. I really don't think Microsoft has thought a lot of this stuff through given that a lot of their income comes from sales to businesses.