Re: [orca-list] Accessible distros

[Christopher Chaltain <chaltain gmail com>]

I'm not doing as much with virtual machines now as I used to, but I had 
trouble with VMware Player when I moved to Ubuntu 16.04, so I tried to 
switch to KVM/qemu. It took some getting used to, but it all seems 
doable to me. The biggest problem I had was installing a Windows virtual 
machine. I couldn't get KVM/qemu to boot from a USB stick, and I 
couldn't get an ISO of Windows. After a few days of Googling and 
research, I just put that project on the shelf for a while. It seemed 
fine for creating various virtual machines of anything I could get an 
ISO for though.


On 12/3/18 8:01 AM, Janina Sajka via orca-list wrote:
> Nick Wood writes:
> > Linux is far from perfect - and I hate how Fedora can just drop a new kernel
> > version into the regular software updates which can completely break VMWare
> > - but overall I am very happy with my setup.
> I haven't run VMware on a Linux host in 20 years, but this sensitivity
> to kernel versions was a most frustrating aspect of reliance on VMware then. So, it's disappointing
> to hear that VMware still depends on particular Linux kernel versions.
>
> Not only did VMware require a particular kernel version, but their
> modules supporting newer kernel versions tended to trail kernel releases
> by weeks, if not months. So, it was much worse than simply updating the
> VMware software on a kernel upgrade--you had to watch and wait for a
> VMware update release--and more money might be required, as VMware is
> not floss.
>
> I am contemplating going back to an environment using virtual machines,
> but I'm not about to go with VMware again for these reasons.
>
> So, since we're on the topic, let me simply ask: Why not KVM/qemu?
>
> Or, if one must go commercial, Virtualbox?
>
> Best,
>
> Janina
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > On 02/12/2018 16:49, Christopher Chaltain via orca-list wrote:
> > > When we ran Linux and Windows at work, this was about 15 years ago, we
> > > ran Windows at the host operating system and Linux in the virtual
> > > machine. We found that Windows liked to assume it had exclusive use of
> > > the hardware so it was more problematic getting it to run in a virtual
> > > machine. Linux, on the other hand, seemed to run much better and with
> > > fewer problems in the virtual machine.
> > >
> > >
> > > Since then, for home use, I've run Linux on the bare metal and Windows
> > > in a virtual machine, and I found this to be satisfactory. Of course, I
> > > had to have the hardware resources to support this.
> > >
> > >
> > > Bottom line is that I'd listen to Kyle.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 12/2/18 8:42 AM, Kyle via orca-list wrote:
> > > > If you must run a VM, I would always recommend running Linux as the
> > > > host and running your work VM on top of Linux. The Linux host is far
> > > > more stable, and it's much easier to roll back a VM that goes wonky
> > > > than it is to have to reinstall your host OS and potentially lose
> > > > the VM in the process.
> > > >
> > > > Regarding which distro to use, I think it's mostly personal
> > > > preference, as GNOME and MATE desktops are both quite accessible
> > > > using Orca. That said, I think Fedora Live Workstation is probably
> > > > your best bet, as you can just press alt_super_s to start Orca as
> > > > soon as the OS boots up. I no longer have an x86_64 machine to test
> > > > this, but the last time I did, the installer worked pretty well.
> > > > ~Kyle
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > orca-list mailing list
> > > > orca-list gnome org
> > > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
> > > > Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> > > > Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> > > > GNOME Universal Access guide:
> > > > https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
> > > > Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > orca-list mailing list
> > orca-list gnome org
> > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
> > Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> > Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> > GNOME Universal Access guide: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
> > Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org

--
Christopher (CJ)
Chaltain at Gmail