How do you run Linux?

[samjh]

I've been using Ubuntu exclusively on my home computer for the past 18 months. It's been a great experience - a far cry from my days struggling to get Red Hat installed 8 years ago! :)

However, today I installed Windows XP as my primary OS and will most likely put Debian or Ubuntu on a virtual machine for tinkering and programming. This is for practical reasons, working with MS Office files with complex and sensitive content (before anyone says it, yes I tried dual-booting and using VMWare and VirtualBox, but neither are efficient way to get work done).

So how do you run your Linux?

(This is a poll.)

[fatality_uk]

Linux only home and work.

[meho_r]

This is interesting indeed. You work with MS Office with complex and sensitive content?! Well, good luck then (and you'll need it;)). I lost couple of years' docs in my office because MS Office Word decided to replace content with rectangles and some symbols. Since that time, I never used MS Office again. Ever. It's simply too inreliable.

And about the pool. I use tripple boot: two Linuxes (Ubuntu 8.04 and openSUSE 11) and Windows XP (only for games).

[lisati]

Desktop has dual-boot Ubunutu 7.04,
laptop did have Ubuntu 7.04 but out of boredom I changed it to xubuntu 7.04 today......

[Barrucadu]

Arch only on my desktop, laptop, and my (after the 15th anyway) new laptop.

[crtlbreak]

dear samjh
I have installed fresh Hardy on my laptop - now going to attack the desktop next for the same. Throwing MS out the house completely. The next step after that will be my office desktops - one by one. Already installing Ubuntu Server as a test to start replacing domain controllers, file, print servers etc - totally sold on this OS - and Fedora. They have both come a looong way.
The only reason you would want to keep a microsoft environment is to use specific applications that cannot run on Wine or havent yet been migrated to cross platform such as Microsoft Visio, Quickbooks etc. Otherwise there is a tool or a developer that has created something useful out there.
Otherwise you can achieve everything and more on a linux box - I even installed Internet Explorer (reluctantly) on Linux to enable access to an IE ONLY specific website to effect certain tasks to be completed that only could be done by IE. The reverse can not be said is true.

So samjh
My choice would be to run native linux and use VM (as you said it) or wine to achieve your goal. But the choice should still definitely be up to you and the way you want to apply that choice.
Regards
crtlbreak

[kpkeerthi]

Dual-booting Arch with Hardy (stripped) as a fallback OS. I don't remember when I booted into Ubuntu last time.

[Scruffynerf]

Home box: Dualboot Linux/XP SP3. Linux primary, windows XP Home only there for games.

[gn2]

Linux only for six months, removed Windows on 1 Jan 2008 because I hadn't used it for the previous eight months and just didn't need it any more.

[angry_johnnie]

My laptop is Linux only. My desktop has both Linux and Windows, and a spare partition for anything else that looks interesting.

[matthew1471]

I dual-boot Ubuntu and XP.

I do all my web dev and everyday work and personal stuff on Ubuntu.

Unfortunately, I need to keep XP for my music work. I dare not try and get Cubase, the 10 odd plugins and my midi keybaord etc setup and working on Ubuntu!

[tombott]

I used to dual boot XP / Ubuntu but on a rebuild (think it was 7.04) I got rid of XP.
Used to use VirtualBox for XP machine, but don't bother at all anymore.

I use Ubuntu at home and work, and find it does everything I need.

[Sealbhach]

Triple Boot - Vista, Unbuntu 8.04 and openSUSE 11.0.

I use Ubuntu mainly, but just recently got suse to play around with.


.

[NovaAesa]

My laptop is Ubuntu only, but my dektop is Windows only. My desktop has no net connection, and Ubuntu (or any GNU/Linux) is too much of a hassle without the net. The desktop is for gaming only anyway. *goes off to play Oblivion*

[Flicflak]

Mac OS X and Ubuntu dual boot. I'm thinking about removing the Mac partition, but it's hard to remove an operating system that costs so much... :D

[VChief]

I pretty much run Linux exclusively. I have 4 distros on my laptop and FreeBSD because I've been wanting to play with it for a while. I also have XP running in VirtualBox for diagnostic purposes since I'm the go-to guy for people around here. I also have been playing with Visual Studio since my dad has been bugging me about it for a while (he's an engineer who uses VB and Visual C++ and wants me to work with him on his independent jobs when I get out of college). I'm still trying to convince him that Visual* and Win* are inferior but he's one of those people who are cemented in their ways and think that all alternatives are evil. ](*,)

[nick_h]

Triple boot - Windows + 2 Linux

[samjh]

This is interesting indeed. You work with MS Office with complex and sensitive content?! Well, good luck then (and you'll need it;)). I lost couple of years' docs in my office because MS Office Word decided to replace content with rectangles and some symbols. Since that time, I never used MS Office again. Ever. It's simply too inreliable.Interesting. I've had more reliability with MS Office in 13 years of usage, than OpenOffice in 5 years. Mileage varies, I guess.

The problem I have is with formatting. OpenOffice simply doesn't preserve MS Word document and Powerpoint formats. It screws up with anything other than trivial features, even multi-level lists and tables aren't preserved, let alone the legal and technical documentation I work with (and no, using ODT format is not a option, as these documents need to be distributable as MS Word *.doc files). I also use Excel and Access for work as well, and OpenOffice doesn't quite meet my needs for those.

As I said, I've tried running WinXP in a VM, with good success. But it's an inefficient way to work. Dual-booting is worse.

Wine refuses to even install MS Office, even when using Crossover Office (or I would have gone for that option).

I know enough about Windows security to deal with viruses, spyware, and hackers. Those hold no fear over me. ;) Although running Debian/Ubuntu was very nice on that front. :)

Having said that, this thread is about how others run their choice of Linux distro. :)

[teaumaz]

Windows at work
Linux at home with Windows XP running in virtualbox

[eragon100]

I voted "linux with virtualised windows", because I have wine 1.1.0 installed :popcorn: (long live wine 1.0.X sereies!)

I only use wine for games (star trek bridge commander, star trek elite force and farcry being the windows games I am currently playing) and winrar (because I don't like the terminal only linux version of RAR)

I don't have another windows install on my harddrive :D

[linuxisfree]

I run Ubuntu ONLY here in my laptop at home (and nothing else), but am forced to run Windows where i work.

[eragon100]

I run Ubuntu ONLY here in my laptop at home (and nothing else), but am forced to run Windows where i work.

So also, no wine installation at home?

[joninkrakow]

On my main laptop, I have MacOS X and Hardy, typically running xfce, but right now, playing with KDE4 (finally figured how to get the panel back). On my beater laptop--a Dell 366 PII, I have it triple-booting Hardy Xubuntu, however, usually with lxde, but sometimes icewm. I also boot into Puppy 4 and on the rare occasion, Puppy 3

-Jon

[BDNiner]

my main computer at home runs ubuntu with other OSes virtualised. but i also have an xp desktop and a fedora desktop. at work my main computer is windows but i also have a secondary ubuntu machine at work that i run a couple internal websites and a mysql database for the ticketing software.

[linuxisfree]

So also, no wine installation at home?
Got that right! No Wine... (don't really need it as i don't play games):D

[FFighter]

XP is always open in VMWare.

[timzak]

Hardy only on my main computer as well as the one in the garage. My wife's computer and my (old) laptop have Win2k SP4. At work we are all Windows.

[toupeiro]

Home. linux with XP VM

Work, 3 machines: 1 XP 32-bit machine. 1 64-bit Linux machine, 1 64-bit Vista machine

Laptop. 64-bit Vista with 64-bit Wubi.

[sl1mshadyx]

Dual booting:
* Ubuntu 8.04 LTS amd64 for non-gaming (multimedia, development, IM, browsing, etc.) with: Windows XP VM and testing/dev VMs (CentOS, FreeBSD, etc.)
* Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (only for games)

[Daggo]

Home- WindowsXP (my customized slipstream disk)
Work- Linux w/ virtualized windows
Laptop- Dual boot vista/ubuntuHH
Ps3- ydl6 (want to try ubuntu though)

[mrgnash]

There's only Linux on this machine :)

[Zeotronic]

I hate to admit it... I mean really hate to admit it, but I dual boot with Xubuntu 8.04 as my primary OS, and Windows XP Pro as my secondary OS. The only reason I still have Windows is because no-one will buy it from me, and I'm too cheap to simply wipe it and use that hard drive... at least, until Windows XP is is completely off the charts as a casually usable OS... like Windows 95 or 98 (IMO). Then I'll wipe it... it simply wouln't be worth anything (not that it should be).

[Methuselah]

I didn't expect to be in the majority.
I also run linux only on this machine.

I didn't see the VM option until after I voted.
Anyway, I do run windows in a VM strictly for connecting to my work's sonicwall VPN using the windows client.
Apart from that, it's hardly relevant.
When I have time to figure out how to connect from linux, even the windows VM can go.

[alciono]

Desktop (main): Ubuntu Hardy Heron
Dell laptop: WinXP + Puppy Linux 3.01
Toshiba Tecra laptop (kids use it mostly): Win98 + SimplyMEPIS
I use the Toshiba Laptop as a test machine to try different flavors of Linux. It has had Redhat 6.0, Slackware, Debian, Puppy, and now SimplyMEPIS.

[cardinals_fan]

Slackware (possibly switching to Vector) on my main partition, data partition, spare partition for testing OS, virtualized Windows, virtualized NetBSD, virtualized Haiku, and another testing OS virtualized.

[Greyed]

Not enough poll options, really.

Game machine: WinXP primary, KUbuntu secondary.
Laptop: Kubuntu (most weeks) or Debian (sometimes)
File Server/Router for my network: Debian
Web/Mail server on a leased VM: Debian under Xen.

So I marked Dual-Boot w/Windows, but really the count is:
1 dual-boot
2 straight up
1 under VM.

To make matters worse one of the straight up I want to change to 1 straight up for Xen and at least 3 VMs. >.>

[Mazza558]

Linux only on this laptop, Windows only on my desktop. I put Nix/Windows dual boot because it's the closest to reality.

[will1911a1]

I use Linux exclusively on my own computers. Arch on my desktop and Xandros on my Eee PC.

[Raval]

8.04 with Win Xp in Virtual Box to run Quickbooks 2007.

[NikoC]

Wasn't really sure what to choose:

I actually have a laptop with Ubuntu all the way and Virtualbox with XP... but I just installed VB to see if I got things working, actually never use it! But always nice to have in order to try to help out in the Virtualization forum...

On my lappy for work I run Mac Os Leopard (macbook pro) with virtualbox and XP... there I rarely use XP for some windows only applications needed for my research (speciation modelling of metals).

I voted Linux all the way though ;)

[Mr.Auer]

I voted linux-only, even though its actually almost linux-only. I have linux on my main workstation dualcore, and Xubuntu on old Thinkpad, and an Eee PC with Xandros (later Ubuntu or some variety). Then I have a second desktop box with Ubuntu as main OS, 300 GB Ext3 drives with backups, and a 15 GB drive (5+ yrs old heh) with XP and a couple old, bought, paid for games I play twice a year. I have last booted that XP 3 months ago ;)

I mostly play games on Linux as well, Enemy Territory, Quake wars, and many open source games. Dont run Wine much. (I dont really game that much, havent in years. Linux can do it well enough for me mostly, except for some old classics like Operation Flashpoint.)

Ive been using mainly Linux for 3 years (on multiple computers), and dualbooted for a couple before that.

Id have to add that this dualcore has never been touched by a Windows install media ;) I bought it assembled but with no OS from a small shop..As well as the Eee PC, it shall never see Windows. Thou Xandros has faults, and it had some security issues out of the box. Like no iptables support in the kernel. And fawlty ownable samba. And portmap open. Nice.

[dominiquec]

Wow. I must say I'm impressed with the numbers. Didn't realize there were so many Linux-only users.

By the way, I'm one of the number. :-) I forced the switch on my home computer nine years ago.

[LMP900]

Ubuntu only on my notebook. My other two computers, an iMac and a Dell desktop runs Mac OS X and Windows XP only, respectively.

Not a big fan of dual/triple-boot machines. ;)

[timzak]

Not a big fan of dual/triple-boot machines. ;)

I have to say I agree. When I first started using Linux, I dual-booted. After 7-8 months, I took the plunge and switched my Win2K install to VM. That lasted about 4-5 months. Once Hardy was released, I backed up my data, wiped all my hard drives, and installed a pure Ubuntu environment. It is so much nicer not to have that crutch anywhere on my main computer.

[RebounD11]

Linux with a WinXP VM for school and work related issues that can't be resolved via Wine.

[keiichidono]

I use Linux only, been using it only since a few weeks ago.

[nkri]

I have Ubuntu and XP, but I use XP only for Flight Simulator and 3 programs for school: Geometer's Sketchpad, Logger Pro, and Fathom. Other than that, I'm Ubuntu all the way:D!

[doorknob60]

XP / Debian dual boot, you can't take away my games...

[tbroderick]

Linux only. Come September, Spore might be worth a Windows re-install.