the corner office

I've spent this week laid low with the dreaded lurgy. The sounds emanating from my chest at night could be used as the soundtrack for a horror movie, and images of me coughing and sniffing would work quite well as the promo poster.

In between sleeping and trying to sleep (koffity koff), I've finally had some time to sit down and play with VMware. Part of my plans for world domination involve me needing a fairly bare-bones Linux installation, and of course VMware is an absolutely brilliant way to set up a working system, and after backing up the base image, fiddle, break and restore and repeat to your heart's content.

Along the way, I got to answer a question I've been wondering for a while: what's the difference between VMware workstation (which is still a commercial, pay-for product) and VMware server (which is free as in with every box of Rice Krispies)? The answer is that there doesn't seem to be much difference at all, at least not for straightforward, normal use. I'm sure there are features that differ, but the server product has allowed me to create and run VMs, and that's all I really need.

One warning I stumbled across though, is that VMware server (which is still in beta), is apparently compiled in 'DEBUG' mode and is therefore a little slower. I haven't noticed it, but I'd infer that if you went with something like VMware player (which is also free), you might get better performance.