CODEWITHSUNDEEP
development-environment
naivnomore
naivnomore

Reputation: 1319

Multi-platform development from one computer

I am planning to build a new development computer for both Windows & Linux platforms. On Windows, my development would be primarily in .NET/C#/IIS/MSSQL Server. On Linux—preferably Ubuntu—my development would be in Ruby and Python.

I am thinking of buying a laptop with Windows 7 pre-installed with 4GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo, and 320 GB HD; running 2 VMs for both Windows and Linux development with the host OS as my work station. Of course, I would be running DBs and web servers on the respective platforms.

Is this a typical setup? My only concern is running two VMs side by side. Not sure if this configuration would be optimal. Alternative would be to do my Windows development on the host Windows 7 OS. What are your thoughts?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 264

Answers (3)

Roger Pate
Roger Pate

Reputation:

Sounds like you will get 15 minutes out of this laptop's battery, maybe 20.

Speaking from experience, you will prefer a desktop plus a "more mobile" laptop. You can do this without spending more than you had budgeted (remember you can skip the monitor on the deskop), but that will probably get you slightly less specs in exchange for the flexibility and a laptop you really can take with you. But I recommend spending slightly more than you would on the single laptop, and remember you do get two machines out of it.

You can network between them (e.g. use remote desktop programs from the laptop to connect to VMs on the desktop).

In my particular case, about 6 years ago I needed a new machine that could be used for on-location photography and had the power, screen-size, disk space, etc. to run Photoshop and other tools (e.g. batch processing ~900 largish images was one use case). I got a beefy laptop, which worked great for that, but the battery quickly died and never had much lifetime in the first place. The system has always been more of a "slightly-easier-to-move desktop" than a laptop, and it sounds like you'd rather have a real laptop.

Upvotes: 0

Kristopher Johnson
Kristopher Johnson

Reputation: 82555

I really like using VMs for development, because it makes it really easy to maintain different configurations, make backups, test comms between machines, experiment, and so forth.

Linux VMs work pretty well. Windows in a VM on Windows, however, can be a resource hog. You probably want more than 4 GB on the laptop.

Upvotes: 1

James Kingsbery
James Kingsbery

Reputation: 7496

If your not going to be switching between the two platform frequently, I would recommend repartitioning your hard drive after you get your machine, and installing Windows in one partition and Linux in the other. Doing things that way is usually simpler, in that you don't need the over head of the VMs.

Upvotes: 1

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