Behold, I undertake the long and arduous process of migrating a small office from two flaky '98 boxes to the 'FOSS stack.'
This will begin with Ubuntu on fairly 'thick' clients (two fresh AMD64 desktops of some sort), because I've stopped being a masochist. Later steps will be to introduce a dedicated storage server, then mirror that offsite.
Helpfully, there are various apps (*cough* Wordperfect *cough* Timeslips *cough*) that are going to require full Windows VMs for reasons I've already researched.***
VMWare have released their free "Player," and just freed up the GSX product as "VMWare Server," both of which sound potentially reasonable enough (assuming Linux's everchanging virtual memory system can cope with GSX's "static memory allocations only"). I hope to get as far away from Windows as possible before Pacifica/Vanderpool or Xen expose other options, anyway.
So... Surely someone's done this before, and I might as well ask around here because most of us share similar conceptions of "convenience" and "pain."
Questions:
-On the VMWare front, is there any compelling reason to grab a license of Workstation to create the machine images versus the freed GSX, given that I only have to do same twice?
-Network filesystems: Your learned opinion -- let the Windows VMs speak SAMBA on the wire, or handle everything through *NIX mounts?
-It's becoming increasingly ridiculous to find legal Windows CDs under $200 or so/seat. Is it painful to build VMWare machines off recovery CDs intended to be keyed to particular hardware? How does anyone deal with this in real life?
On the hardware front:
-Are there any systems vendors out there (HPaq, Gateway, Bob's Discount Computers and Waterbeds) still able or willing to supply anything better than a recovery CD (or worse, a partition) on the MS front? Anyone found any 'pretty good deals?' I'm no longer amused by building my own, especially when it's impossible to find windowless cases and aftermarket power supplies all come gold-plated and rhinestone encrusted with six noisy fans.
-Same goes for "server" hardware; anyone making anything deskside (rather than rack) with conveniences to beat DIY? Without the MS tax? I can use Froogle and Pricewatch too; I'm just looking for any particular products that've inspired love.
***No, Wordperfect doesn't run properly under WINE as of last December. Yes, there were two ports of Wordperfect at one point, but the reputed stability of either does not sound impressive, especially when every document's been created with 9 and 8 was the theoretically-decent port.
There were two other footnotes at one point, but I decided not to write them.