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I honestly don't really see the point in this. If you like Ubuntu/Linux more, then just install Ubuntu/Linux on the computer without Windows. Why go through th

I honestly don't really see the point in this. If you like Ubuntu/Linux more, then just install Ubuntu/Linux on the computer without Windows. Why go through the additional layer of Windows? Perhaps the use case is limited to people who need to run Windows/Mac-only software like AutoCAD or some Adobe software.

x5n1 11y ago
Because Microsoft wants to lock in developers to their expensive OS so they can make billions more, obviously. It's because programmers are expected to not be the smartest bunch and just be shoveled around with a bit of money and marketing expenditure. You know we took all the free stuff and made it proprietary, come serve are corporate goals. Meanwhile they have been allegedly screwing over Linux for years with backend deals with companies like Foxconn. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
mobiuscog 11y ago
Because many people like Windows and develop on/for it, but also develop server-side code which generally requires Linux... so we don't have to keep virtualising OSs or running multiple machines - we can now develop for both within a single desktop. This is exactly the type of thing that many people want.
- x5n1 11y ago
  What I wanted is to run Windows in a Virtual Machine on my Linux box. Can I do that? Not without paying Microsoft $150. You can get their trial to run for 90 days, but it sucks having it expire and shut off after a few mins.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    Windows isn't free software. You can't expect to run it for free just because it's in a VM. Honestly being able to run it for 90 days for free (after which all you have to do is go back to an earlier snapshot) seems pretty good to me.
  - progman 11y ago
    Or you can purchase one of those cheap Win8/Win10 Pads for less than 100$ and connect them via vnc to your Linux box. Works pretty well for me with an 8" Dell Venue.
skrause 11y ago
I like the Unix command line, but I don't really like Desktop Linux anymore (after having it used for >10 years), that's why I use OS X at home. At work I'm required to use Windows because I develop Windows software, so it's actually quite exciting that I get to use my most useful Unix utilities on my work computer as well.
- redpanda_ua 11y ago
  May I ask you why you don't like it? As a new-ish Linux convert, I'd like to see your point of view as someone who used it for a while.
- progman 11y ago
  > I don't really like Desktop Linux anymore I used KDE 3 and Gnome 2 for many years (Windows also). and switched to LXDE/OpenBox after KDE 4 and Gnome 3 turned out to be unusable. Although my current desktop is very simple it has become one of my best desktops ever because it can be configured to the extreme. It is very suitable for developers who want a clean workspace which doesn't get in their way like all the other modern desktops (Win 8+ also) which focus more on eye candy than usability.
emptyfile 11y ago
Because I have to use Linux for work even though I hate it and half the drivers for my laptop aren't working.
NeutronBoy 11y ago
> Perhaps the use case is limited to people who need to run Windows/Mac-only software like AutoCAD or some Adobe software. Or many, many games.
- gizmo385 11y ago
  That's where I'm sitting. Sometimes I want to jump between gaming and working on personal development projects. Even with an SSD, rebooting anytime I want to do that is just a pain.
  - SXX 11y ago
    If you run on desktop hardware you can use VM with VFIO GPU passthrough. It's much less pain in ass than reboot or work on frankenstein OS.
    - NeutronBoy 11y ago
      > It's much less pain in ass than reboot or work on frankenstein OS. No, it's an incredible pain in the ass to get this working properly, when I could spend 20 seconds rebooting
      - SXX 11y ago
        Can't agree with you. Adding one option into grub config for Xeon CPUs and one optional (you don't need ACS patch if one PCI / PCIe port used) kernel patch for Intel consumer CPUs is clearly not "pain in ass". It's might be hard to setup few years ago, but now it's super easy. With AMD hardware everything just work out-of-box.
runholm 11y ago
There are a lot of companies that run large numbers of tools only available on Windows, often including expensive in-house tools. Having people in the company run different OSes cost a lot of money because of the duplicate tools that has to be adapted or created for different OSes.
TheRealDunkirk 11y ago
Here is what I consider to be the perfect example of where this fits into the development world. From my employer, I'm given a laptop, running Windows 8.1. All of my work for the past 2 years has been in developing a .NET line-of-business application, but I was recently asked to prototype an application to automate and streamline a collection of Excel spreadsheets. (Don't laugh; I've kind of made a career out of this sort of thing.) For this project, I could choose the programming environment. Well, my tool of choice, for the past 10 years, has been Rails. I prototyped the application on my MBP within 10 hours, but needed to be able to work on the site with my corporate laptop, so I setup a Linux VM, and setup 2 networks (one host-only to share files, and one NAT'd to get through the corporate firewall), configured the folder shares, and got everything going the "VirtualBox" way. It's a pain. Like a lot of Fortune 500's, the IT resources are locked down to the point of being combative. There's no way I can take my MBP to the office and work on the company LAN. (You can get an exception, but you have to ask for special permission every single day.) This project SUPPOSES to allow me to open a shell, install RVM, install Ruby and git, download my sources, bundle install, and do `rails -s` to do development. (The application is just using sqlite for the database, so I don't even need to mess with MySQL for now.) If everything works like it should, I can just use Sublime Text 3 as my editor to work on the files, and host on the Linux subsystem. When it's time, I can `git push` my sources to the TFS server, and deploy them on the Linux VM running in Azure. So that was kind of long, but this is how I see it working and fitting into my world. Against my better judgement, I'm letting my gaming rig (re)upgrade to 10 to try this out. I don't know when my company's IT department will standardize on Windows 10; we just got 8 last year. I just want to see if this can really fill the niche it supposes.
- JdeBP 11y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416884 for some things that might be a problem.
  - progman 11y ago
    That's an really important point.
wbkang 11y ago
As a user of both worlds I can think of Better touchpad drivers, saner high DPI support, font rendering preference, simple composite window manager that supports easy snapping.

x5n1 11y ago

Because Microsoft wants to lock in developers to their expensive OS so they can make billions more, obviously. It's because programmers are expected to not be the smartest bunch and just be shoveled around with a bit of money and marketing expenditure. You know we took all the free stuff and made it proprietary, come serve are corporate goals. Meanwhile they have been allegedly screwing over Linux for years with backend deals with companies like Foxconn. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249

mobiuscog 11y ago

Because many people like Windows and develop on/for it, but also develop server-side code which generally requires Linux... so we don't have to keep virtualising OSs or running multiple machines - we can now develop for both within a single desktop. This is exactly the type of thing that many people want.

x5n1 11y ago
What I wanted is to run Windows in a Virtual Machine on my Linux box. Can I do that? Not without paying Microsoft $150. You can get their trial to run for 90 days, but it sucks having it expire and shut off after a few mins.
- tempestn 11y ago
  Windows isn't free software. You can't expect to run it for free just because it's in a VM. Honestly being able to run it for 90 days for free (after which all you have to do is go back to an earlier snapshot) seems pretty good to me.
- progman 11y ago
  Or you can purchase one of those cheap Win8/Win10 Pads for less than 100$ and connect them via vnc to your Linux box. Works pretty well for me with an 8" Dell Venue.

skrause 11y ago

I like the Unix command line, but I don't really like Desktop Linux anymore (after having it used for >10 years), that's why I use OS X at home. At work I'm required to use Windows because I develop Windows software, so it's actually quite exciting that I get to use my most useful Unix utilities on my work computer as well.

redpanda_ua 11y ago
May I ask you why you don't like it? As a new-ish Linux convert, I'd like to see your point of view as someone who used it for a while.
progman 11y ago
> I don't really like Desktop Linux anymore I used KDE 3 and Gnome 2 for many years (Windows also). and switched to LXDE/OpenBox after KDE 4 and Gnome 3 turned out to be unusable. Although my current desktop is very simple it has become one of my best desktops ever because it can be configured to the extreme. It is very suitable for developers who want a clean workspace which doesn't get in their way like all the other modern desktops (Win 8+ also) which focus more on eye candy than usability.

emptyfile 11y ago

Because I have to use Linux for work even though I hate it and half the drivers for my laptop aren't working.

NeutronBoy 11y ago

> Perhaps the use case is limited to people who need to run Windows/Mac-only software like AutoCAD or some Adobe software. Or many, many games.

gizmo385 11y ago
That's where I'm sitting. Sometimes I want to jump between gaming and working on personal development projects. Even with an SSD, rebooting anytime I want to do that is just a pain.
- SXX 11y ago
  If you run on desktop hardware you can use VM with VFIO GPU passthrough. It's much less pain in ass than reboot or work on frankenstein OS.
  - NeutronBoy 11y ago
    > It's much less pain in ass than reboot or work on frankenstein OS. No, it's an incredible pain in the ass to get this working properly, when I could spend 20 seconds rebooting
    - SXX 11y ago
      Can't agree with you. Adding one option into grub config for Xeon CPUs and one optional (you don't need ACS patch if one PCI / PCIe port used) kernel patch for Intel consumer CPUs is clearly not "pain in ass". It's might be hard to setup few years ago, but now it's super easy. With AMD hardware everything just work out-of-box.

runholm 11y ago

There are a lot of companies that run large numbers of tools only available on Windows, often including expensive in-house tools. Having people in the company run different OSes cost a lot of money because of the duplicate tools that has to be adapted or created for different OSes.

TheRealDunkirk 11y ago

Here is what I consider to be the perfect example of where this fits into the development world. From my employer, I'm given a laptop, running Windows 8.1. All of my work for the past 2 years has been in developing a .NET line-of-business application, but I was recently asked to prototype an application to automate and streamline a collection of Excel spreadsheets. (Don't laugh; I've kind of made a career out of this sort of thing.) For this project, I could choose the programming environment. Well, my tool of choice, for the past 10 years, has been Rails. I prototyped the application on my MBP within 10 hours, but needed to be able to work on the site with my corporate laptop, so I setup a Linux VM, and setup 2 networks (one host-only to share files, and one NAT'd to get through the corporate firewall), configured the folder shares, and got everything going the "VirtualBox" way. It's a pain. Like a lot of Fortune 500's, the IT resources are locked down to the point of being combative. There's no way I can take my MBP to the office and work on the company LAN. (You can get an exception, but you have to ask for special permission every single day.) This project SUPPOSES to allow me to open a shell, install RVM, install Ruby and git, download my sources, bundle install, and do `rails -s` to do development. (The application is just using sqlite for the database, so I don't even need to mess with MySQL for now.) If everything works like it should, I can just use Sublime Text 3 as my editor to work on the files, and host on the Linux subsystem. When it's time, I can `git push` my sources to the TFS server, and deploy them on the Linux VM running in Azure. So that was kind of long, but this is how I see it working and fitting into my world. Against my better judgement, I'm letting my gaming rig (re)upgrade to 10 to try this out. I don't know when my company's IT department will standardize on Windows 10; we just got 8 last year. I just want to see if this can really fill the niche it supposes.

JdeBP 11y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416884 for some things that might be a problem.
- progman 11y ago
  That's an really important point.

wbkang 11y ago

As a user of both worlds I can think of Better touchpad drivers, saner high DPI support, font rendering preference, simple composite window manager that supports easy snapping.