Lotsa Cabo wrote:
Hi Ryan!I may have to ditch Fedora for now because of VMWare. I'm hoping someone can make a recommendation as to what distro they would use in this situation.
My goal... To successful install and use FC3 in a virtual machine hosted by WinXP for however long it takes me to find, install, understand, and otherwise replace by existing M$-based apps with Linux versions. Then, once I have everything ready to roll on Linux, and have no NEED for the Windows apps blow away the box and install it as a FC3-only machine.
Maybe my exeprience can help. I have an HP/Compaq nx7000 laptop. It *was* a WinXP machine. The primary apps I was using
o Microsoft Office (word, powerpoint, excel, etc)
o Microsoft Visio
o Microsoft Project
o e-mail (thunderbird)
o webbrowsing
o Microsoft Outlook as a PIM and syncing with my PocketPC
I am currently running FC3 on the laptop. E-mail & web browsing are no problem. For my Microsoft apps (Office, Visio, Project) I am running Crossover Office 4.0 which works just fine. I can open MS Word by clicking on an attachment to e-mail, just like I could under Windows or just like a Linux application. There are some Windows applications that aren't supported by Crossover Office, For them I am going to be using Win4Lin. I've used Win4Lin with previous Fedora/RedHat distributions and have been happy with it. I've also used it with PCLinuxOS distribution and have been pleased there too. I am currently testing the latest kernel patches for Win4Lin for the 2.6.9 kernel so I can use Win4Lin under FC3. They should have a prepackaged kernel ready in the very near future so you can simply "install" Win4Lin without worrying about any kernel details.
I currently only have 2 minor problems to be resolved:
o syncing my PocketPC (Compaq iPaq) to my laptop - have the laptop & iPaq talking via SynCE and can transfer files between the two using commandline utilities, but haven't gotten the KDE PIM suite to sync with it yet.
o Cisco VPN. One of the sites I visit occassionally has a wireless network with VPN setup. For Windows machines, they have a Cisco VPN client customized to their site. I have wireless working fine on my laptop (ipw2100 drivers for intel centrino), I just need to figure out the VPN stuff. Haven't had a chance to do that yet.
Bottom line, you don't need to trash FC3 just because VMware is causing you grief. Between Crossover Office and Win4Lin, you can run virtually all your Windows apps under Linux. Also, OpenOffice provides very good (not perfect) compatibility with Microsoft Office applications.
John
My problem... The current kernels with FC3 have a clock issue with VMWare. They request clock ticks too often (10 times as often) and VMWare basically bogs down to a snails pace. It took over THREE hours for it to come up today.
My options... According to what I have found on RedHat's site (through the help of a few folks in here), I COULD switch out the kernel with an earlier version from some other source. I do not want to do this as my knowledge of Linux is not strong enough to confidently nor efficiently do this; especially considering how sluggish the VM is running. My only other option is to ditch FC3 with something older, or something that does not has the 2.6.X kernel already, then get up to speed, and then blow away the box.
So, in short, I'm looking for some recommendations as to which distro I should use in the interim. All thoughts, recommendations, or ramblings would be greatly appreciated.
Thanx, Ryan
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