I’m a big Linux fan, but spend a lot of my time in windows because of driver issues under linux. So, to get the best of both worlds… I run Ubuntu 8.10 in a virtual machine. Prior to yesterday, I was using Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007. Things were OK, until I found Sun Microsystems’ Virtual Box 2.0.4.

Microsoft who? I’ll never go back to Virtual PC, not for virtual windows boxes – and most assuredly never again for virtual Linux boxes. Here’s why:

Virtual PC 2007 has some virtual resolution issues. You can’t have a virtual PC with more than 1600 x 1200 resolution. That’s annoying when you want to run virtual 1680 x 1050 on your host 1920 x 1200 screen. With VirtualBox, this isn’t an issue. Pick your resolution – and it works. (Well, you do need to add the resolution(s) you want to your xorg.config…)

Virtual PC 2007 can play sound from Ubuntu 8.10, I think, but it doesn’t work out-of-the-box. VirtualBox: enable sound for your virtual Ubuntu machine – and no more configuration is required. It works flawlessly.

Virtual PC 2007 can not run 64bit guest operating systems. That’s a bit of an issue, because if you want to test your 64bit applications on a virtual machine – you’re SOL. VirtualBox can handle 64bit guest operating systems as easily as it can handle any 32bit OS. Just make sure you enable “VT-x/AMD-V” hardware assisted virtualization when you’re setting up your virtual machine.

As if that wasn’t enough. There’s more! VirtualBox has some stellar “Additions”. Once installed, from the VirtualBox virtual machine menu (under devices). You can enjoy seamless mouse integration and clipboard synchronization. You can also share folders between your host and guest. That’s just cool.

To get it working on Ubuntu 8.10 all I had to do was select the option from the menu. Then a virtual CD was mounted. I opened a command prompt and ran:

sudo sh /media/cdrom0/VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run

It works beautifully, even after upgrading the kernel.

I haven’t run any official benchmarks, but everything under VirtulaBox feels MUCH more responsive than it did under Virtual PC 2007.

Try Sun’s VirtualBox 2.0.4 today! You’ll wonder how you ever put up with the shortcomings of Microsoft’s inferior product.

Then, I stumbled on this page: http://secretsoftheinternets.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/download-the-adobe-cs4-suite-early/ that gave me a tip. It was just a bit off…

You need to have an Adobe Account, and start some trial download – like Adobe Acrobat 9. Cancel the download after a few seconds, then you can download the CS4 Master Collection by copying and pasting BOTH of these into your browser or download manager:

http://trials.adobe.com/Applications/MastCol/CS4/Win/ADBESTAMCS4_LS1.exe

http://trials.adobe.com/Applications/MastCol/CS4/Win/ADBESTAMCS4_LS1.7z

5.4Gb later, you’ll have the trials!

Alternatively, I JUST stumbled upon a site that has links to each component, take a look if you don’t want to download the whole suite: http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=592602

Have fun.

Ok, so what happened is that OpenOffice apparently made the text look more clean in this version… I guess it is. As a result, my double spacing doesn’t take up as much room. End result: same text, fewer pages.

Now, if I were a bum of a college student (which is tempting), I’d stay with 2.1 – after all I’m getting more pages for free. Since, that’s just not me… looks like I’ll be writing more. I don’t really mind though, because comparing the realestate taken up by Word for my papers – OpenOffice is right on par. Now when I have to e-mail an 8 page paper to my professor… I can be sure it will be 8 pages on his end as well.

That’s progress… now, if I could just use Vista’s dictation feature in OpenOffice.