Playing with Linux on the Desktop

Last year, I pondered Apple's future with the Mac, and pondered my future with the Mac. True to form, I'm still thinking about this -- a process that has picked up steam over the past few weeks, for a few reasons. The first is Apple released new Macs, specifically Nehalem-based Mac Pros, which appear to be super, super fast, but also super, super expensive. In addition, what with the economic malaise and all, non-Mac computers have gotten pretty cheap. Finally, I had an absolutely terrible week Apple-wise, trying to get two of Sugar's first generation Mac Pros repaired cheaply and quickly (hint: the final solution was derived neither cheaply nor quickly).

Up until this week, I had been mentally preparing myself to just "suck it up", and buy a Mac Pro later in the year. I know that it would represent a significant chunk of change to purchase, but I've been trying to convince myself that keeping the machine for 3 or 4 years would justify the cost. However, trying to get two machines repaired this week has given me an insight into the TCO of owning a Mac Pro, and it doesn't appear to be pretty. So, I'm reconsidering.

So, I have been spending some time going "back to my roots", and pricing out the parts for DIY systems. As it turns out, I could build my own Core i7 box, including a monitor, and still have enough money to buy a Mac mini -- all for less than the cost of a new base model Mac Pro (which doesn't include a monitor!). But, going with a non-Mac will entail an Operating System change (because going the Hackintosh route, no matter what positive things people say about it, just seems like more trouble than it's worth).

So really, the question isn't about weather or not to stick with the Mac, or what kind of PC to buy, but if I can tolerate Linux. So, this weekend I revectored -- I starting pricing out components for the cheapest quad core box that I could buy, knowing that I could reuse a case, optical drive, and hard drive that I had on hand. The idea was to get something reasonably modern for as little money as possible, so that I could start fooling around with Linux on the desktop, alongside of my current late 2006 24" iMac.

So, I spent some time digging around in AMD-land (while I know that Intel is making some kick-ass stuff, if I were to do this, I'd throw AMD a bone, since I live in Sunnyvale, and you have to support the home team!), and came to the conclusion that I could get the parts for a Phenom II-based machine for somewhere in the $300 - $400 range. And while that was pretty tempting, I quickly realised the fatal flaw in my plan -- I don't have a suitable monitor. And looking into it, while it's possible to get a cheap monitor, I probably wouldn't be happy with it. And while I did find some monitors that I liked, they are in the $400 - $600 range. So now, I'm talking about actual, "real" money to buy all of the components that I'd need, just to be able to kick the tires on Linux.

But on my way home from Fry's yesterday, I realised -- I had everything that I needed already. I thought that if I just fired up VMware Fusion on my iMac, and gave as much memory to my Ubuntu VM as possible, the performance might be good enough to give Linux a proper workout. So, I reinvested in my 64-bit Ubuntu 8.10 VM, and sure enough, after quitting all of my Mac apps and boosting the RAM in the Ubuntu VM to 2Gb, it is quite snappy!. Even more amazing, VMware's Linux tools are actually quite good, so running my VM in full screen mode is giving me a pretty accurate depiction of what life would be like running Linux full time.

So far, I'm impressed with how far Ubuntu has come. I have sound working in VMware, and I was able to get Adobe's beta 64-bit Flash player installed, so Hulu and Youtube are working fine. Even more impressive, the totem plugin for Firefox can play back trailers on Apple's site:

Watching the "Up" trailer in Ubuntu 8.10

The audio and video are in sync and everything. It's really impressive.So, I'm going to continue to play with this. But if it keeps going in a positive direction, it might be time to invest in a monitor soon. ;)

-Andy.