Comments on: VMWare full-time?

By: afongen » My desktop is no longer virtual

afongen » My desktop is no longer virtual — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:37:26 +0000

[...] David Berlind’s experiments with desktop virtualization reminds me that I forgot to follow up here on my own attempt to live inside VMWare. [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:03:43 +0000

Thanks for your input. I decided to bite the bullet and try it for a couple weeks. I wouldn’t quite call what I have an abundance of memory and CPU, but enough that it’s not dreadful. I’ll report back after I’ve lived this way awhile.

One immediate downside is that I don’t think that I can support dual monitors. As it is, with the ThinkPad model I’m using, support for dual external monitors is painfully uncomfortable. In VMWare, I don’t see any good way to do it at all.

On the other hand, I run the email client in the host operating system, so by working in full- or near-full-screen mode (quick view), I can minimize that distraction. I was already pretty good about that, though, so it’s not much of a win.

Okay, off to pay the virtualization tax.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:13:55 +0000

I use VMware server for demonstration purposes. It’s very handy for that and the testing things you discussed. A problem is that it consumes a lot of memory. This is because I have my base build of Windows which uses memory just to exist, then I run VMware server and put my virtual machines in there. Each virtual machine requires memory for the Windows it runs, plus the app. The memory cost, then, is that I have the extra memory footprint of a base Windows install and VMware itself. Then I have to consider what I call the virtualization tax. This is the I/O and CPU inefficiency imposed by having an extra software layer and is worth attention when performance is important.

You have to look at your computer. If it has an abundance of memory and CPU, then you should be OK to give it a whirl.

By: pcomeau

pcomeau — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 23:18:18 +0000

As long as you have the resouces (e.g. hardware, money for licenses, etc.) I think living in VMWare is a great idea.

From being able to create different dev and test enviroments to knowing that burning the image off to dvd/cd means and easy restore, sounds great.

The only downside is how much it will eat up resources and support for the cool new thing might not be there right away.