Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.
This might not look like much (in fact it will look exactly the same as always, notwithstanding that the left sidebar is not rebuilt yet). In fact, it represents several full (long) days of pretty hard graft - all of which is Microsoft's fault.
The upgrade to Ubuntu (let me tell you - moving from WinXP Pro Corporate edition to buntu is an UPGRADE) was seamless - nay, flawless. The hard bit was the fact that I need a residual WinXP functionality to run TradeStation and my satellite connection. Since WinXP is still about as secure as women who read "Elle", I did not want any WinXP machine to link to our netorrk in any compromisable (new word?) way.
So I set WinXP up as a virtual machine under Ubuntu - giving me very precise access control both to the WinXP instal itself, and the interaction between the WinXP install and therest of the network.
Now let me say this - I have not yet installed TradeStation in the new XP wirtual machine (I decided to dispense with the old Windows partition completely); I plan to do that tonight.
All that will exist on the XP machine is the net conneccvtivity and TradeStation: no apps, no browser, not a damn ting (why should I waste VM space when Ubuntu does EVRYTHING better than Windows?).
At present my machine is doing several tasks, and the XP mmachine (a virtual machine, ou understand) is operating with absolutly no noticable performance degradation. Both the Ubuntu partition and the VM are using the same internet connection, what's more it's a shared dialup which is accessed via the ethernet card! So the VM and the Ubuntu main game, while being completely Chinese-walledfrom one another, are sharing resources... amazing.
I've alays thought of myself as a reasonably bright lad, but either I am a massive brainiac or Ubuntu is literally idiot-proof. Get it, and instal it (or play ith it for a while) and you will agree.
