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Virtualizing Workstations For Common Hardware?

Posted by kdawson on from the rock-to-stand-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We have approximately 20 workstations which all have different hardware specs. Every workstation has two monitors and generally runs either Ubuntu or Windows. I had started using Clonezilla to copy the installs so we could deploy new workstations quickly and easily, when we have hardware failures or the like, but am struggling with Windows requiring new drivers to be installed for all new hardware. Obviously we could be booting into Ubuntu and then load a Windows virtual machine after that, but I'd prefer not to have the added load of a full GUI underneath Windows — we want maximum performance possible. And I don't think the multi-monitor support would work. Is it possible to have a very basic virtual machine beneath to provide hardware consistency whilst still allowing multi-monitor support? Does anyone have any experience with a technique like this?"

3 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Isn't that called an... by tumnasgt · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The use of 'an' with h is very common, though incorrect. From what I understand, it is because some accents do not pronounce the h on 'historic' so 'a historic event' is 'an (h)istoric event' for these people (correctly), then people that do pronounce the h started to use 'an' with 'historic' (incorrectly), and it spread to other words like a disease.

    Using 'an' with 'historic' when pronouncing the h is almost acceptable, anyone using it with any other word where the h is pronounced should be banned from using the English language.

  2. Re:As much as I hate to give Microsoft praise... by techno-vampire · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    As long as you stay away from ATI or nVidia graphics cards, you should be OK. Those two brands need proprietary drivers because they won't release the specs but do make binary blobs available. Lexmark printers are also problematic because they neither release the specs nor make Linux drivers available.

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  3. Re:Isn't that called an... by Surt · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    an before h is entirely valid, and so is a. Ideally, one could even choose the correct one by following the formal rules.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_articles#Discrimination_between_a_and_an

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