

A funny case of using the PC - d_luaz
http://luaz.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-funny-case-of-using-pc.html

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rsync
I made a very recent decision to do this very thing, but not for any of the
reasons the author outlines...

I use an OSX system, and run OSX in a vmware fusion VM, and do _all_ of my
work there. Nothing is done in the host OS. I revert to the initial, clean
snapshot daily.

I do this for security and privacy. My web history is not wiped by the
browser, but is reverted to a clean OS install. Any malware that might infect
the VM is cleaned out almost immediately. Further, I can quickly wipe my
"system" prior to travel, or other scenarios where I lose physical control of
the system.

So at any given time, all I have is a virgin OSX system with vmware fusion on
it, and a single, virgin OSX VM. Of course this implies that my work and my
data all live remotely, but that has been the case for almost 15 years.

~~~
stephengillie
That's very much living in the cloud. How do you handle your passwords -- out
of a dropboxed password manager? Or just try to remember them all?

~~~
rsync
I just remember them.

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brudgers
_" I wonder about the future where the main OS of a notebook/PC is a VM OS
(something like Xen), where we could choose to boot up multiple OSes and
communication/sharing between these OS are still possible, and the VM OS
doesn't consume too much memory and CPU."_

Windows 8 ships with the Hyper-V hypervisor, and provided one's computer has a
recent CPU, begins to fulfill the author's vision.

~~~
jzelinskie
If you had asked me 5 years ago, I would have also been hyped about using a
hypervisor to run Windows alongside GNU/Linux, but nowadays I am far more
interested in GNU/Linux getting triple A video game titles so that I can
simply abandon Windows. When you dual-boot eventually you get sick of powering
on/off and you spend most of your time in one of the OSs; I never got to play
my games anymore. My solution was to do development on a GNU/Linux or Mac
laptop and leave Windows+cygwin on my gaming rig. I frequently use synergy[1]
to share my gaming rig's mouse, keyboard, and copy/paste buffer with my laptop
over WiFi.

[1] [http://synergy-foss.org](http://synergy-foss.org)

~~~
kaoD
I couldn't agree more.

My solution was to run Windows and a very lightweight VM (~512Mb RAM) with a
minimal development setup (Arch + emacs + Xmonad) which can be deployed
anywhere. RAM can be expanded anytime to allow running heavy servers (such as
MongoDB) but the light VM is usually just fine.

I also tried VPS servers on demand (Digital Ocean) + PuTTy on Windows to do
remote development, but it isn't nearly as comfortable. Dealing with network
waits (e.g. sending large file transfers) was awful, so I don't do that
anymore.

I did this because I mostly use Linux for development and Windows for everyday
tasks (maintaining a Linux system is tiring even with Ubuntu).

I thought about setting a dev server like you, but I don't want yet another
machine in my room wasting space and generating heat. Light ARM systems (e.g.
RasPI) might be a good alternative, but I don't feel like dealing with
proprietary platforms right now.

------
mcot2
Windows just makes it difficult for developers. Or at least difficult for
developers not using microsoft stacks.

Why not have a bash compatible shell or at least built-in common programs like
ssh and tar?? Even the "power shell" is pretty garbage and has a lot of legacy
cmd.exe stuff in it. Where are the tabs!!!

~~~
stephengillie
Linuxes just make it difficult for developers. Or at least difficult for
developers not using LAMP stacks.

Why not have a CMD compatible shell or at least built-in common programs like
rdp and smb?? Even the terminal is clunky and uses bizarre archaic commands.
Where is the gui!!!

~~~
tr4656
Not sure if you are being sarcastic for the sake of being sarcastic or are
actually serious.

~~~
stephengillie
It's a little of both. I like the ideas behind Linux, distros, and FOSS in
general, but having grown up in the shadow of Redmond means I'm frustratingly
out of my element when trying to set up RasBMC or Raspbian.

~~~
tr4656
Theres always time to learn. You can always try experimenting via VMs on your
main computer or simply reading. I can't imagine that RasBMC would be too hard
to set up considering its more or less GUI based.

------
bliker
I am in similar situation, but I have less powerful computer. So I made
minimal debian setup in virtualbox, mounted my work folders as shared. When I
need it I start the machine in headless mode. After few seconds I got ssh
access.

EDIT: I just realized that I was doing the same thing as vagrant is doing,
without actually knowing about it beforehand.

------
cabirum
One awesome benefit of VMs are snapshots. Experiment as much as you like, then
revert to an earlier state and start anew.

------
yen223
Nice to see a fellow Malaysian on the front page of HN ;)

Gotta give a huge recommendation for Vagrant. Spinning up a VM is dead simple,
and synchronisation between VMs is more or less automatic. Not sure how well
it fares in Windows though.

~~~
iaskwhy
I've been using it for a while and so far so good. The only problem I ran into
was when I wanted to use ansible for the provisioning and since it was not
really easy to do so I just went with chef instead.

I really enjoy using Windows, so much that I'm dual booting it on my MacBook
Air. I find it particularly odd when web developers make their sites and web
apps look better in a Mac than on a Windows machine since (being generic here)
most users will be using Windows. This is mostly noticeably in two areas:
colors and type. Both look very different between Macs and Wins.

~~~
baalexander
Heads up that since Vagrant 1.2, Ansible is supported by Vagrant without the
need of a plugin. I created a gist similar to the one we're using at work to
show how to use Ansible on Vagrant:
[https://gist.github.com/baalexander/5845528](https://gist.github.com/baalexander/5845528).

------
bluedino
We do the exact same thing. Up until 5 or so years ago, we used a separate
computer under each desk to run Linux on, it's so nice to be able to run both
on the same machine. It's also portable, where previously you'd have to drag
two laptops on the road with you.

------
mmagin
Wow:

"Internet Explorer: In Malaysia (my country), IE is the only choice if I need
to perform Online Stock Trading (every brokerage use the same ActiveX app
developed by the same company), and the same goes with some Online Banking."

~~~
bliker
I am not 100% certain but in Slovakia majority of gov. related communication
requires Internet Explorer. Not talking about Windows.

------
jamesjguthrie
I finally abandoned Windows as my main OS after 16 years and moved to OSX only
using Windows 8 in VM for my accounting software VT Transaction+, and I
haven't looked back. I was using OSX in VM lots anyway so the time was right.

------
jiggy2011
Sounds like he should try Vagrant.

~~~
jebblue
I'm trying to understand the viability of the use case for Vagrant. It seems
to me that if the developer does not do "vagrant destroy" at the end of the
day and chooses to customize their VM; then it will dialy diverge from the
specified starting point of the Vagrantfile. If on the other hand, the
developer does "vagrant up", code some stuff, check it in, do "vagrant
destroy" and follows this use case daily then I'd see where Vagrant makes
sense.

~~~
jiggy2011
I use vagrant but I never do vagrant destroy. I just create a separate vagrant
for every project that has different requirements. So I have one with LAMP ,
one with Rails etc and don't have to worry about them treading on each other's
toes.

The advantage is how easy it is to create a new VM under vagrant, just
entering a few commands vs going through an OS install process. Also most of
the boxes are created with development in mind, so having a shared folder
created automatically and a passwordless SSH login is a timesaver.

If you wanted a significantly divergent configuration from the base config you
could just create a new box and puppet manifest. That way you can distribute
your configuration to other developers if required.

You shouldn't need to customize the VM that much beyond installing tools
required for the project, because the idea is that you still run most of your
user-facing tools on the host OS.

------
alexeiz
And I have a very cute puppy.

