Tag: linux

Weekend Project

I mentioned in a post a few days ago (so… like… 100 posts back… I post waaaaaaay to much) that I am going to set up a new office space in one of the kids’ rooms. I am going to put together a new desk and a work-from-home workstation to use with my work-issued laptop. I was also thinking of putting a personal machine in there just for schnitzengiggles. I figured it would be a windows box and I could put some games on it or something. Mostly it would just be used for youtube, but who knows.

Today I had a crazy idea.

If I am going to have a desktop machine that isn’t a Mac (I am 100% a Mac user outside of work)… why not a duel boot with a version of Linux? Debian or Ubuntu? Something like that?

That could be fun, right? Get a little swagger for my Computer Science degree going? Yeah… we’ll have to look into that more once everything is setup and running.

Operating Systems Galore

I do this every time we go through one of our Macintosh switcheroo’s. I set up a new Mac, and then set up parallels, and then set up a bunch of different operating systems to run on the virtual machine. It’s always Ubuntu because Linux rules even though I really don’t use it. Then I set up Windows so I can use the new Mac for work.

Today though, we did something new. Today I noticed that you can install a pre-release version of Windows 10 without paying for a license. Cool! I am typing this on internet explorer because I don’t want to install another copy of Chrome onto another virtual machine, and internet explorer is running on Windows 10. Windows 9? No way jose, this is Windows 10!

So far it looks a lot like Windows 8 only with a start button. Which is what those few unfortunates who are running Windows 8 wanted in the first place. Yippee and all that!

I think I’ll go start up Ubuntu and run that on my Mac’s virtual machine for a while.

Playing Operating System roulette kinda rules all.

Parallels

When I first bought my iMac I had visions of using it for telecommuting. I set up Parallels and installed Windows 7. My visions ended after the first day when I realized that Mac keyboards require two buttons for Windows function keys. My compay’s software uses the F12 key like it’s going out of style. So much for using my iMac.

I barley touched Parallels after that. Eventually there was something that I needed Windows for so I popped it open, kicked off Windows 7, and was told my password expired and needed to be changed. Yeah, I never set up a password for Windows. I thought maybe my admin password from the Mac OS? Nope. Maybe I set it up but just didn’t remember, so I tried every password I’ve ever used, ever. Nope, none of them worked. I got frustrated and stopped trying.

Today I happened to catch Jen installing Ubuntu into her MacBook Pro’s Parallels. That made me jealous, so I installed it too. I am actually writing this post using Firefox as my browser and Ubuntu, via Parallels, as my OS, all running on Apple hardware. I just love living in the future, don’t you? I also Googled my Windows sign on issue and came to the conclusion that I am the biggest moron on Earth. It seems you can just enter through the whole error message and it opens up Windows like a dream. Sonofa…

Anyway, I am off to find some cool open source Linux software to install on my new Ubuntu set up.