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Windows 7 Duel boot Linux or Virtualize?

J

jrel209

Weaksauce
Joined
May 31, 2008
Messages
99
Hey guys, I have recently taken an interest in learning Linux. The main reason for it is I plan on finishing up a degree in Computer Science. I am leaning towards Information Technology and doing some type of network administration work.

So I thought it would be smart to start learning a bit of Linux. That way when I start going for Linux related certs with said degree, I won't be completely lost in the dark. I want to get a basis down with linux (learn it's capabilities and basic commands, create and maintain users), and then I plan on setting up a server to either host a website, or use as a DVR or just a general workstation since I will end up having to dab in programming while working on the degree. I hope it will be fun and I hope to be able to customize Linux to my daily computer needs.

So with that information aside, I have decided to get xubuntu 9.10. Any opinions or advice on xubuntu 9.10 or another distro? Or since I just want to use Linux as a learning platform should I just virtualize it into windows 7?

Also my HD atm is 450 gigs, when I partitioning should I just do 50/50? Or should I do a 3 way split, about 40% Windows 40% Linux and the rest used as basic storage I want to move back and forth between the OS/s? My knowledge on how that works is a little bit fuzzy.

The thing I like about Linux as well is that it's not really known to run games, I think it will help while I am studying lol. I have a bad habbit of reading and going, hrmmm maybe a few rounds of Bad Company 2 wont hurt. =/
 
my advice, cut loose 10gb for fedora 12. use some of that 10gb for the swap file. a default install should work for your purposes. Being that you are pursuing a degree in IT and such, you'll find fedora is more useful by default, and will continue to be as you learn of more things to use it for.

If you are hellbent on learning, i'd say install it to the hdd rather than virtualizing it so you get the full pain of dealing with hardware compatibility :] - be sure to have another computer handy for googlinz.
 
If you are serious about IT then virtualize.

You wont be building Linux servers on oddball hardware with dubious support because that is just stupid. You'll be deploying Linux on hardware that is known to work well with Linux. Additionally you'll be needing to learn virtualization anyway so kill 2 birds with one stone.

Get vmware server. learn the vmware console and stuff. extra points if you can p2v your laptop and run a virtual copy of it on the original host. Those tools are free.

Fire up your vm, launch your IE browser on Windows and see if you can connect to your VM web server. I'm not completely sure you would be able to do that from a single laptop dual boot situation ;)

Fire up multiple VMs for a self contained network lab wherever you have your laptop.
 
Virtualization should work, just don't go through the automated stuff. Go through the actual installation if you do that route. However, Windows 7 and Fedora 12 play very well together, so dual booting is no problem at all. It automatically detects that Windows 7 is there, and will replace the bootloader with its own (and put an entry for Windows 7). Vista was a pain, but I think the makers of GRUB made it a little easier.

Virtualization makes testing a lot easier, unless you have another PC. Just make sure your machine can handle it, and if you disabled it, re-enable any Virtualization features on your computer.
 
On your laptop for learning, I'd definitely go for virtualization. You can easily set up and discard installations. You can also try out multiple distros at the same time.
Check out Centos, it is the exact same thing as Red Hat. It has less features than Fedora, but it is more stable.
 
SinShiva said:
If you are hellbent on learning, i'd say install it to the hdd rather than virtualizing it so you get the full pain of dealing with hardware compatibility :]
Click to expand...

Man you're cruel! It's true though, nothing motivates you to figure out hardware drivers like having a non-functional system. I managed to get RedHat 5.1 running on a PC Chips Super Socket 7 AT board with onboard video/audio/lan/modem and get everything working. It was more stabile than Win95 (big surprise).

If you're serious about IT, VMWare Server hands down. Server is very similar to ESX and has a web management console. At work I have it on my Core 2 lappy to run test machines and access them my normal workstation. Some shops use Microsoft's HyperV but honestly it's still very limited in terms of NIC teaming, shared storage, etc. Sun's VirtualBox is fun to play with and gives you more available resources than Server but is finicky and doesn't scale beyond local access.

Fedora or Suse are the distros to use. Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise are nearly identical and are used a lot by Oracle and HL7 enterprise interface engines. Suse is used by a lot of Novell shops who are migrating away from Netware (can't imagine why :rolleyes:).
 
Really new to this VMWare server, I only have one computer at the moment, I do have access to my brothers computer though. Will I be able to use VMware server w/out an actual computer dedicated to be a server? I do plan on setting up a cheap system as a server in the near future depending on how funds will be.
 
Like everyone else said - for learning and whatnot, a VM is great. When it comes time to set up an actual server, throw it on hardware then.
 
If you're looking to learn from the business point of view, look to SUSE and CentOS. openSUSE is the free version of SLES and CentOS is the free version of Redhat. Fedora is not like Redhat because it runs the bleeding edge for most things and that is not what most shops run. You will run into SUSE and CentOS more often than other distros. CentOS is probably the main one to start with although it would probably be good to check out both in the long run.

I don't really suggest running them at the same time to begin with. It would probably be better to run one and get accustomed to it before starting with the other distro. To do otherwise will have you getting confused between the two.

 
SmokeRngs said:
If you're looking to learn from the business point of view, look to SUSE and CentOS. openSUSE is the free version of SLES and CentOS is the free version of Redhat. Fedora is not like Redhat because it runs the bleeding edge for most things and that is not what most shops run. You will run into SUSE and CentOS more often than other distros. CentOS is probably the main one to start with although it would probably be good to check out both in the long run.

I don't really suggest running them at the same time to begin with. It would probably be better to run one and get accustomed to it before starting with the other distro. To do otherwise will have you getting confused between the two.

Click to expand...

how different are the distros from one another? Was suprised that there are so many options.
 
jrel209 said:
how different are the distros from one another? Was suprised that there are so many options.
Click to expand...

There can be a lot of differences which is one of the reasons there are so many different distros. The package management can vary greatly, the default UI can be very different, the installers and installation options are numerous among other things. It's very difficult for me to describe. The best suggestion I can make is to try out different ones and you'll understand rather quickly.

Many of the differences are related to the GUI portion of the distro as the underlying framework is usually very similar between most distros. CLI commands usually work on just about every distro outside of the package management. It's because of this that I suggest working on learning one distro before moving to another. It will help you from getting confused between the different distros when you first start out.

The reason I suggest CentOS and openSUSE is because they are the free versions of Redhat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise which are the two distros you would most likely run into in a business environment. I don't think you'll find a whole lot of Debian based distros in the workplace right now and Debian is what the different *buntus are based off of. I do not work in IT or IS so I can't tell you for certain, but that is what I've heard.
 
I [heart] VMWare :)

The different distros may have same underlieing kernel, but they can still be very different. I have only seriously played with Ubuntu and Fedora recently and while the kernel is the same base and they both use Gnome, they are different for sure. I prefer ubuntu for ease of use, but in the IT world that will not be the case.

[edit] SmokeRngs beat me to it! [/edit]
 
Thanks for suggestions so far, decided to try Fedor 12, apparently it is a free version of redhat enterprise. So with business aspirations in mind, I went with this route.

I first tried the LiveCD and installing for the desktop icon, but for some reason it had a hard time loading. So now downloading the file for bittorrent - Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD - and hopefully this one will work better.

After I go threw the pains of installing, learning basic commands I'll move into trying to create and maintain a virtualbox.
 
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