[Coco] For the love of an OS.

[Frank Swygert]

As long as Microsoft continues to create software that intentionally won't play well with others (proprietary -- like Silverlight) there will always be a problem. It's not like they have a lot of competition! I wouldn't mind a version for Linux even if I have to pay for it. There is Moonlight, but it's not fully compatible, or won't work with Netflix.

The biggest hurdle for most programmers seems to be that there are so many Linux versions that they can't support them and lock others totally out of their code. It doesn't take much to tweak the code that will run on say Fedora to run on an Ubuntu distribution, but it may take some tweaking/patching to get it to run right.

Companies have other choices, so why do they let Microsoft sell them on something like Silverlight that won't run on just about anything? I can instantly watch Netflix only through a Virtual machine (I use Sun Virtual Box) on Linux. Or I could dual-boot, but that defeats the purpose of running Linux to begin with.

I have a quad core processor on my HT machine (replaced my DVD player with a computer, don't use it as a DVR though). Virtual Box let's you set how many of the cores to use. Since I'm not doing anything else when watching Netflix videos, I could probably get by with letting the VM use three cores, but I set it to use two. Beats having to reboot the machine if I happen to have it running and decide to watch something on Netflix. Haven't got the VM to use a wide screen format yet though. Other than that there are no headaches, and I like the VM bettet than the dual-boot option.

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Date: Mon, 02 May 2011 20:37:33 -0700
From: Steve Bjork<6809er at srbsoftware.com>

Trying to use a poor virtual system is a kluge.  (and not worth the
headaches)  Don't get me wrong, there are good virtual systems out
there.  (Most are a bit pricey.)  Sometimes it's better to just use the
real thing.

Bottom line, don't kludge.  Just build the real thing.   Or duel boot
the computer.  I feel better about the number of macs I own since they
all run Windows just fine via Bootcamp.


-- 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars"
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://www.amc-mag.com
(free download available!)