VMware Performance Testing on Kubuntu Linux
I’m really excited about the upcoming version of Kubuntu 7.04. Kubuntu is basically a distribution of Linux based on Ubuntu, but instead of GNOME, it includes KDE as it’s window manager. I think it looks a lot nicer out of the box, and has a lot of great functionality.
Anyway, enough background. I’m toying with the idea of running Kubuntu as my primary desktop OS, and running my development environment in a virtualized environment. I’m pretty committed to VMware because of how well it works, and that I already have a lot of images. The biggest hurdle to trying out a new OS has been the fact that half of what I do is ASP.NET development in Visual Studio 2005.
So as a test, I did some timing of how long it takes to run a build on my physical computer, and then in a virtual environment on a Kubuntu 7.04 beta partition.
To do a rebuild of the current project I’m working on, it takes about 32 seconds on my XP machine. In a virtual machine on Kubuntu, it takes about 37 seconds. A build with no changes takes 5 seconds on my XP machine, and between 5 and 6 on Kubuntu.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it might be very well possible to give Kubuntu a shot for say, the next 30 days, and do my .NET development in a virtual machine. I’ll be thinking about that until April 19th when the new version of Kubuntu comes out.