Here at ENKI, I'm one of the few people who uses Windows for my daily work, since I communicate a lot with customers and have to be able to prepare documents for them as well as for our website.  Because our services have until now been delivered largely on Linux, I'm the object of constant teasing about my attachment to Windows.   So when my computer started to go on the fritz, I purchased a new computer and decided to investigate moving to Linux and running my legacy Windows applications in a desktop virtualization environment while I figured out how to divorce myself from them.  Being that I need my computer for work, I decided to limit the amount of time I spent trying this out to a couple weeks' worth of evenings.  Despite that, it turned out to be quite a saga!  I ended up discovering that desktop virtualization isn't quite ready for prime time, at least on a Linux host environment.  You can read the details below...

My first task was to choose a distribution of Linux to use.  I started by trying out Ubuntu, since I'd never used it before.  I'm also familiar with PCLinuxOS, which we have on some of our laptops here, and is one of our customers.  Both are easy to set up and get working, and have great support through their forums, but each one failed to support the silent operation features of my new computer (fan control and the automatic processor clock scaling.)  I'm sure with enough tweaking I could have made it work, but since I was trying to replace Windows, I decided to go for a supported Linux solution.  I picked SUSE Linux Enterprise 10/SP1, which you can purchase with support from Novell.  Novell sells SLED10 as a replacement for Windows, claiming that it is usable right out of the box for office applications.  SUSE installs easily, has a lot of Windows-like features built in (including the popular open source desktop suite, Open Office) and is easily configurable in the installer or control panel, similar to Windows.  SLED10 also supports Xen-based desktop virtualization out of the box with easy configuration and no additional cost.   We use Xen here at ENKI to deliver our virtual private data centers and it's a rock-solid, reliable virtualization environment that I can trust. Unfortunately, SLED10 didn't support my PC's power management because the hardware drivers in it were too old.   I could update them, but then I wouldn't get support - and some of SLED10's modules were dependent on the old drivers!   I'm hoping SP2, coming in a few months, will solve that problem.  I liked SUSE so much that I tried the free SUSE Linux 10.3, since Novell sells support for it as well.   I was able to get the power management to work, but I couldn't get the promised support because the call center in Ireland is only available from 1am to 9am PST, which didn't do me a lot of good. 

However, once I tried to get the Xen-based virtualization running on SUSE Linux 10.3 and install Windows, I ran into a showstopper.  The Nvidia and ATI drivers for Linux do not support Xen.  As a result, you're forced to run Linux with a VGA driver that keeps you from using all the incredible whizzy graphical desktop managers as well as any graphics-intensive programs, slowing screen updates to a crawl.  I spoke with the development manager for Nvidia's desktop graphics processors last week, and he's aware of the problem and told me that his team is working on it.   But I wasn't quite ready to give up on Linux yet, for two reasonse: Compiz-fusion, the graphical desktop manager in SUSE Linux (and other distros) is so amazing and beautiful that both Apple and Microsoft have years of work to catch up -  I was totally captivated by it! Also, Linux's easily downloadable repository of thousands of instantly usable and free applications is a big draw.  So I decided to give Linux another try by using VMWare virtualization instead of Xen.

I downloaded the free trial of VMWare Workstation, and installed a copy of Windows XP on it.  I ran through the lengthy Windows update process, installed my applications, and finally ran the files and settings transfer wizard to move my personalization and files from my old computer into Windows on VMWare.  But I ran into trouble right away:  despite the fact that I've moved from a 2.2GHz Athlon 64 computer to a 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, Windows ran about 1/3 as fast in VMWare as it did on the old computer.  A lot of digging around on the VMWare forums found some bugs that were 2 versions old, which keep VMWare from scheduling multiple CPUs correctly.  So I turned the number of CPUs that VMWare supports down to 1, and suddenly Windows was as fast in my virtual environment as it was on my old computer.  Next, I tried to install Adobe CS2 into my virtual Windows, and ran into another problem: VMWare "lost contact" with the CD-ROM drive after the first install disk and the install failed.  Back I went to the forums,  where I discovered another 2-version-old bug and a workaround that allowed me to install CS2.  But the problems kept on coming, including display problems that kept me from controlling the virtual machine successfully and forced a reboot of Linux; problems reliably mounting the host's file system to exchange files between Windows and Linux; inability to use USB keys successfully; VMWare mouse drivers that blocked XP from recognizing my trackball, and on and on.  After finding all these long-neglected bugs in VMWare's knowledge base, as well as suffering disappointing performance, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to pay about $200 to VMWare on top of $150 to Microsoft, only to end up with an environment that was going to be more problematic than the scary comments I'd ready about Windows Vista.   In the process, I also realized that I'd have to think very carefully about basing end-customer services on VMWare as well, since the sheer volume of long-term unrepaired bugs that I ran into was pretty daunting.

So, it's clear that desktop virtualization isn't quite ready for prime time, despite VMWare's assurances and advertisements to the contrary.  I'd love to try Xen on the desktop, but due to lack of video driver support, that's not quite ready either.

There actually is an alternative that eliminates the need for Xen or VMWare virtualization at all.  It's called Wine, and it's a Windows emulator.   It's even commercially supported by CodeWeavers as a product called "CrossOver Linux"   CodeWeavers has a compatibility database for Windows applications.  Unfortunately, the ones I use most often - Outlook, Photoshop, and Illustrator - don't have 100% compatibility yet.  I've heard good things about Wine on the Linux forums, and recently read an announcement from Adobe saying that they'd work on versions of their software that worked in WINE, so the future looks bright for it.

In the end, I decided to postpone the move to Linux on my desktop and installed Vista on my PC.  It wasn't without problems, including - surprisingly - no driver for my favorite Kensington track ball, but in general it was painless and I'm very satisfied with the speed and improvements in Vista.  But I miss the beautiful Linux desktop!

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SpeedQueen: wine-ing

It's called Wine, and it's a Windows emulator.

I think WINE stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator

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April 22, 2008

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