Here’s a new slogan off the top of my head: “If it isn’t virtual, it isn’t 
real.” :-)

I use VMWare Fusion on my MacBook Pro, although I’ve generally been impressed 
with VirtualBox (the price is certainly right).

Lately, I’ve been using a VM within a VM. I need to maintain an app on some 
Windows boxes, but don’t have one myself (don’t want one). To maintain the app, 
it is easiest to give them a solution that runs in a VM in one of said Windows 
boxes. To do so, I run Windows on my Mac inside Fusion. I then tried running 
Ubuntu under VirtualBox in this virtualized Windows box, but Ubuntu wouldn’t 
boot. It could be that if the outer host (i.e. my Mac) were running VirtualBox 
instead of Fusion, it would work, but I haven’t tried that. Instead, I run 
VMWare Player (the free, as in beer, not as in freedom, software) inside this 
virtualized Windows box and Ubuntu runs fine there. Surprisingly good 
performance, for a simple LAMP stack running in this double virtualized 
environment.

Anyway, life without virtualization would be a whole lot less interesting.

Gary

On Dec 6, 2013, at 12:54 PM, Joshua Thorp <jos...@stigmergic.net> wrote:

> This is exaclty how we operate at my company and I have found it to be an 
> incredible time saver.  The alternative requires detective work to solve 
> every problem for every user.  If everyone is using the same Vagrant box then 
> solving the problems of one user can be applied to all of the other users.
> 
> I know python is a prime offender on this kind of configuration issues,  but 
> this technique is wonderful for many different sorts of software packages…  
> In one go you can have a complete system up and running with potentially many 
> different pieces of software properly configured and running…  The 
> instructions typically go,  install virtual box, install vagrant, clone this 
> repo,  type “vagrant up”… and you are running. 
> 
> —joshua
> 
> On Dec 6, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> wrote:
> 
>> Just curious.  Has anyone knowledge of this course and/or the 
>> school/instructors?
>>    
>> https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-5-01x-linear-algebra-1162
>> 
>> One interesting thing in the FAQ was computer requirements:
>> What software do I need for the course?
>> We will utilize VirtualBox, Vagrant, and Git, which are available for free. 
>> We have configured a virtual machine for download to ensure that all 
>> participants have the same software and environment. With it, you will 
>> create a small linear algebra package using Python 3 and iPython Notebooks. 
>> Detailed, easy instructions will explain how to download, install, and use 
>> the software. If you are registered for the course, you will receive an 
>> email alerting you when these instructions become available. You will be 
>> able to access them at least a week before the course begins. (Don't be 
>> intimidated by the jargon. We'll get you through it.)
>> 
>> That, on the one hand, is extraordinarily sophisticated, on the other hand a 
>> comment on just how hard it is to configure a desktop environment for class 
>> material.
>> 
>> Imagine telling someone that you'll have to have a computer within a 
>> computer configured correctly to run the Python packages you'll be using!
>> 
>> I was more impressed by Stanford's Machine Learning class that just said: 
>> Install either MatLab or Octave.  All our code will work with that.
>> 
>>    -- Owen
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