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Warren Pease · Mar 29, 2009, 11:04 PM

Now that I have offloaded much of my stuff (pix, mp3's and mov's) onto my new iMac, I want to dual-boot my MBP with Ubuntu linux. I mainly use my computers for web development stuff (RoR and PHP).

I currently run Ubuntu server VMWare instances with netatalk on both machines for this purpose, and don't plan on changing that. My goal is to be able to play around with Ubuntu on my MBP and evaluate it as a web development platform.

My question is whether I should install server and then add a desktop. I like Gnome, but would be content with just a fluxbox on top of it (which I used back in my gentoo days), but I imagine I'd have to add Gnome/KDE components to use some of the better web dev tools.

Or... install desktop and add the LAMP stack on top of that along with Ruby/Rails.

I know the main difference is the kernel, and that one doesn't come out of the box with a DE.

Which would you do? Also, which editors would you use? I currently use TextMate. I use nano on the CL, but really don't want to do all my work in it.

besson3c · Mar 29, 2009, 11:16 PM

I'm currently using VMWare Server on CentOS, FreeBSD as a guest + OpenVPN + TextMate + SSHfs + Subversion (evaluating Git), this works well.

I would suggest getting a cheap but speedy PC, installing Ubuntu on it (Desktop or Server), and running the free VMWare Server on it. This will free up resources on your Mac, and VMWare Server is very easy to install and provides several advantages that Fusion on the Mac doesn't, particularly remote console access. I would also suggest replacing Netatalk with FUSE/SSHfs - it is much faster and allows you to mount multiple shares on the same machines.

mduell · Mar 29, 2009, 11:24 PM

It's going to be used as a desktop, install Desktop.

Warren Pease · Mar 29, 2009, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I'm currently using VMWare Server on CentOS, FreeBSD as a guest + OpenVPN + TextMate + SSHfs + Subversion (evaluating Git), this works well.

Are you using TextMate in FreeBSD? Was thinking more along the lines of a one OS solution, in this case Ubuntu. Not interested in adding more hardware*.

I've noticed some lag with netatalk esp over my network. Can i do SSHfs from OSX (wrt my current setup)?

* since I want my laptop to be a standalone solution, for working at coffeeshops etc. While mildly intriguing, VPN'ing back to my apt is beyond the scope of anything I want to tackle right now.

besson3c · Mar 30, 2009, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by Warren Pease

Are you using TextMate in FreeBSD? Was thinking more along the lines of a one OS solution, in this case Ubuntu. Not interested in adding more hardware*.

I've noticed some lag with netatalk esp over my network. Can i do SSHfs from OSX (wrt my current setup)?

* since I want my laptop to be a standalone solution, for working at coffeeshops etc. While mildly intriguing, VPN'ing back to my apt is beyond the scope of anything I want to tackle right now.

TextMate in OS X. I believe TextMate is only available there. The idea here is that you'd have a development workstation and a test server. You could put everything on your laptop, but then you'd have the footprint of running your VM host (which is a RAM and power drain). I'd rather maximize my computer resources to allowing me to work as quickly as possible. Then again, I'm using an old Powerbook G4 to work on, but I think I'll want to stick with this setup whenever I upgrade to faster hardware.

SSHfs is possible in OS X with MacFUSE, and I recommend MacFusion which provides a nice GUI for mounting shares.

With regards to connecting back to your apartment from coffee shops, you wouldn't need a VPN if you were going to use SSHfs, but you'd take a bit of a performance hit in the upload speed of your home network. What I might suggest doing is getting into version control via Git or Subversion so when you want to get away from your apartment you can just check out your work and test it against your local web server (you can use your /etc/hosts file to provide access to your domains).

The other reason I like my setup the way it is is that I use my Ubuntu machine as a backup server (which wouldn't work well on a laptop that is often sleeping or unavailable), as well as a server for a number of other things (printing, iTunes, general storage, gaming, VM host, MythTV, etc.)

Warren Pease · Mar 30, 2009, 06:52 PM

I just downloaded both MacFUSE and MacFusion to check out. Probably won't be too hard to set up in my VM(Fusion - lots of similarity here) instances, I hope.

Well, I'll probably end up going with the Desktop edition (by unanimous vote right now) for dual-booting my laptop. Besson, my iMac is similar to your ubuntu set-up, storing my media, so I'll host my VM there (just maxxed out the RAM) when back at my apt and work locally when out and about.

Thanks for the info, and feel free to add more advice. Linux? TextEditors? (a la TextMate - do they exist?)

besson3c · Mar 30, 2009, 08:38 PM

All you need on the host side to use FUSE/SSHfs is SSH enabled.

As far as text editors on Linux, I know this will probably sound snarky, but most people that I know use vi or emacs. The learning curve is high, but you can actually do a whole bunch of cool stuff with either of these editors.