As a follow-up to my previous post, I’ve just finished moving off my Ubuntu VMs. I don’t necessarily blame Ubuntu for this, but it’s just a little too laggy in a VM. I bet it’s only a few ms most of the time, but it’s noticeable and it’s frustrating when you’re in a good flow. Perhaps next year, if there have been improvements on both the Linux and VMWare side.
I did try VirtualBox, which seemed slightly more responsive but was very flaky, it would randomly lock up in strange ways. I also tried Virtual PC, which isn’t really an option since it lacks real multi-monitor support, but didn’t offer any improvements anyways.
Another issue which may seem minor but any programmer will tell is definitely not is that my code font, Lucida Console, doesn’t work the same on Linux. I’m not familiar enough with font mechanics to say how, but I tried everything including fractional font sizes to going through probably 50 other fonts, and it just doesn’t have the right density. Fonts on Linux are getting better though, I did enjoy the Ubuntu font in the OS UI.
Alternatively running Windows 7 in VMWare so far has been almost completely transparent. I haven’t done it enough to say it’s a total success but I’ve already gotten confused when I’m in full-screen, which is a good sign. Of course the downside is that licensing issues are tricky and expensive, but since these are for paying projects, I can recoup the $200 fee. I may try an OEM license for the next one, it appears to be legal and about half the cost.