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Multiple Boot Revisited© Copyright Darrell Anderson. Despite the cost, I decided to take another look at VMWare. Multiple booting sucks. I noticed that VMWare supports a dual boot hard drive. In other words, VMWare can be configured to use both operating systems in real time. Thus, a user can work live in either OS from within the OS or within the other OS. That is down right cool. Unfortunately, my hardware (a 400 MHz K6-III+ and 256 MB RAM) meets only the bare minimum requirements to run VMWare. Translation: slooooowwwww. So I looked into Codeweavers Crossover Office and I got to wondering if CxO could be configured like VMWare. That is, could CxO recognize already existing Windows partitions on a dual boot drive? I have operated my system for so long with a C:, D:, and E: drive that I honestly do not know how to run with only a C: drive. All of my Apps are located on my D: drive. Second, why should I waste hard drive space installing another copy of Word 97 on my Linux side? Yes, I have the hard drive space to do so, but why should I bother? I would rather see CxO simply recognize that I already have Word 97 installed on my Windows side. Even if I gave in and installed Word 97, how much time would I spend trying to configure that installation to be the same as my already existing Windows installation? Although I have spent more than my share of time inside the idiotic Windows registry, I do not care to face such a challenge. Probably too much time. So I maintain my point about migrating not being so easy. Too much past configuration work and data to migrate. More and more I am realizing that migrating will be a slow process for me. Maybe the problem is only me in that I have accumulated some very specific habits. Furthermore, suppose I could run my email and internet browsing from Linux—I still would want to boot back to Windows when I wanted to write in Word 97. VMWare seems the best path but is expensive and my hardware is insufficient. For the price of VMWare I could buy a used Duron or PIII system, something that is faster than my K6-III+. Then, with VNC I could operate both computers concurrently. Do I want to spend the funds? At this stage no, because there are a sufficient number of quirks about Linux that would prevent me from being productive. And as I spend so much time in Word, I cannot yet put a number on the time cost of migrating from that tool. I would like to learn more about DocBook so I can single source documents. Thus, in addition to simply learning more about how Linux functions under the hood, I see myself booting into Linux for that kind of thing, but until KMail and Konqueror meet my expectations, I do not see myself doing much more in Linux. Not for now, and that discourages me because I do not like M$. Still, my Windows system is now considered by M$ to be obsolete; thus, I am on my own anyway. Finis. |
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