Posted: 11/25/2013 10:51:14 AM EDT
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Ok, I've downloaded a number of Linux distro's and am having fun trying them out.
Another item I want to learn about is virtual machines. I've seen guys posting about them for years on here. What is a good place to go and download some software to play around with? Eta: my platforms are Windows 7 or Windows 8... |
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If you're willing to spend the $189 I highly recommend VMware Workstation. It's not cheap but it provides a lot of functionality.
If you have a spare machine install VMware ESXi, and setup a vCenter server. All the info you need is available with a google search. Also you can download MS Server 2012 for free for 180 day trial and can use Hyper-V. |
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http://www.vmware.com/support/download-player Look at this make sure you have good hardware or things will dog a bit.
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Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. |
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Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. Quoted:
Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. Awesome info, guys. I've got Virtual Box running now, trying to get Linux Mint to run. Fun fun! 
eta: I don't think this supports Mint, but Fedora is listed and I have a live cd for that... |
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Awesome info, guys. I've got Virtual Box running now, trying to get Linux Mint to run. Fun fun!
eta: I don't think this supports Mint, but Fedora is listed and I have a live cd for that... Quoted:
Quoted:
Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. Awesome info, guys. I've got Virtual Box running now, trying to get Linux Mint to run. Fun fun!
eta: I don't think this supports Mint, but Fedora is listed and I have a live cd for that... Mint should work fine |
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Mint should work fine Quoted:
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Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. Awesome info, guys. I've got Virtual Box running now, trying to get Linux Mint to run. Fun fun!
eta: I don't think this supports Mint, but Fedora is listed and I have a live cd for that... Mint should work fine Mint gave the splash screen, Fedora made it to the Live Desktop or install menu, and Ubuntu gave an error message saying I did not have enough cpu. This is on a 2 year old, cheapie Toshiba Win 7, 4GB of RAM. Will try it on my Win 8 machine in a moment. |
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Virtualbox is a great tool, I use it at home regularly. At work here I use ESXi, and vSphere vCenter. Working on my VCP5 -DCV right now.
The idea of virtualization is awesome. Once you get the hang of a single instance of a virtulmachine, you can move into hypervisors. I believe Xen is free, and fairly robust. If you get yourself an old Dl360 or something off of CL, you could be running a half dozens VMs in fairly short order. Neat stuff... |
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You going to either A: pass it through on the USB subsystem, or B: share that folder with the guest OS from the host (your laptop) In the Virtual Box Manager page, I created a device filter for my external HDD. It appears on my VM Mint desktop now. eta: GREAT SUCCESS! Playing Borat with VLC in the VM 
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There are a ton of things you an do with a VM and linux.
You basically have the generics down on the VM side. As far as the linux side, here is a list of things I put on reddit a while ago... Things to learn; Setup a ssh server Setup an FTP server Install Squid/Squidguard and make yourself a caching proxy After changing your passwords to good ones, figure out how to port forward and access your computer form anywhere on the net Figure out how to ssh without needing a login. Figure out how to use Googles two factor authentication with ssh Install/configre a ZNC server to use with irc Get used to using IRC for a resource Setup a remote bittorrent client Learn how to complie packages from the source Learn grep, awk, vi, and other useful commands Learn Python Learn about symbolic links, and their intricacies and why you would use them Install, and configure the postfix mail server, and possibly spamassasin to go along with it. Install and configure Samba in such a way that the users from your Windows desktop can store files on the Linux machine or Write a script to get go the Windows files on pull them to the linux machine and use CRON to schedule the back. Possibly use a program to differential backups so you are not moving data that doesn't need to be moved. Setup your own VPN server, and use your trusted internet connection while out of the house. Learn how to interact with the current users GUI environment from your command line Install configure VNC Learn why there is /media and /mnt, and successfully edit the fstab file to mount the Windows partition of the local hard drive, now try mounting a share on another computer. Learn to use the program Screen Learn chmod, and the multiple ways to manipulate file permissions and owner ship Install vim, and get colors, bracket matching working. Now change them to another color scheme. Learn vi Really, I promise you, learn vi I shit you not, the biggest thing that helped me as a IT professional was learning 10% of what vi could do. The program is amazing. Learn how to set a process (znc?) to start on boot, in the correct run level. Give yourself a static IP address, netmask, and dns settings. Create a local dns server Create a dhcpd server, (dont forget to turn of the dhcp server on your router). Make your dhcp and dns services play nicely together with automatic registration. Install and configure a webserver of your choice. On said webserver, install Wordpress, or Joomla or any other content delivery program. Configure the message of the day on your ssh server, use variables and programs to give you useful information about your server instead of just "Hello 8ftmetalhead" etc etc etc This is obviously not an end all be all list. But you stated that you are a comp sci graduate looking for a job in the field. A lot of these I have needed to do in my 6+ years working as a systems admin, and others are things I wish I knew how to do before I started here. Hope this helps and gives you at least some direction. ~~~ This is just a small list of things you can do. Workstation virtualization is great...but the real benefits start to show their heads when you move to hypervisors/servers. |
| Like I said just a small list. If you do happen to get your hands on some other hardware; http://www.xenserver.org/open-source-virtualization-download.html is definitely something you could have fun with....not, if somehow you happened to get two servers, and maybe a cheap nfs box, or build them all...then the fun really starts happening. |
| MegaGunner that is an awesome list of things to learn. I'm an electrical engineer and I've found that knowing how or knowing how to figure out 1/4 to 1/2 of what you said has been a huge help in my career. I've always been good with computers but learning some of that stuff has seriously been a huge help. I would highly recommend other people take your advice! |
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MegaGunner that is an awesome list of things to learn. I'm an electrical engineer and I've found that knowing how or knowing how to figure out 1/4 to 1/2 of what you said has been a huge help in my career. I've always been good with computers but learning some of that stuff has seriously been a huge help. I would highly recommend other people take your advice! Thanks man! it is just a collection of things I have needed to do over the past 6 years as a mixed systems admin. if I had to choose one thing on that list though that she be priority number one, its using vi. create/edit a file, save that file and exit the program. It sounds simple enough, but the first time I used vi, I couldn't get out of it, so I had to restart the computer. Today, I am no vi expert, but I can make it do my bidding to the degree I need to do without thought. |
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Quoted: Mint gave the splash screen, Fedora made it to the Live Desktop or install menu, and Ubuntu gave an error message saying I did not have enough cpu. This is on a 2 year old, cheapie Toshiba Win 7, 4GB of RAM. Will try it on my Win 8 machine in a moment. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Use this, and virtualize an instance of linux. Once you learn VPC, then try using VMWare's VMPlayer. Those 2 will cover mostly everything in the basics. When you're ready to learn more...step up to VMWare Workstation -> Hyper-V -> ESXi, You will have a good understanding of virtualization following this path. Awesome info, guys. I've got Virtual Box running now, trying to get Linux Mint to run. Fun fun! eta: I don't think this supports Mint, but Fedora is listed and I have a live cd for that... Mint should work fine Mint gave the splash screen, Fedora made it to the Live Desktop or install menu, and Ubuntu gave an error message saying I did not have enough cpu. This is on a 2 year old, cheapie Toshiba Win 7, 4GB of RAM. Will try it on my Win 8 machine in a moment. I gave up on it and switched to VMware player. There was a free version floating around....
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| Ill add a couple to the list of fun things to learn. If you ever move to esxi and plan to run a lot of different linux distros set up openldap for authentication and setup shared homes on an NFS share. It will make your life easier and is a great learning experience. VNC will also be useful at this point for acessing desktops on any systems you bother installing them on. SSH keys are just as secure as passwords if your root account is secure (your not allowing root ssh are you?) and less susceptible to man in the middle attacks. If you plan to do any serious linux administration learn iptables, selinux, and satellite(ie spacewalk). You will run into those professionally. Oh and as stated above vi is your friend. Centos seems to behave closest to the redhat systems we have at work. Give freebsd a try just for something different. There is an open source version of solaris now called open indiana though solaris x8x is free (as in beer). |
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The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well.
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If can get the gear together for a NAS and work with iSCSI shared storage it can open up your possibilities. Just remember to crawl->walk->run. |
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The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well. Quoted:
The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well. Quoted:
If can get the gear together for a NAS and work with iSCSI shared storage it can open up your possibilities. Just remember to crawl->walk->run. Freenas is now total shit. All their best developers disagreed with their commercialization philosophy and forked the project over to nas4free, which is now what you want to run. |
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The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well. Quoted:
The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well. Quoted:
If can get the gear together for a NAS and work with iSCSI shared storage it can open up your possibilities. Just remember to crawl->walk->run. Yeah I use a synology NAS as well and it works great. |
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I gave up on it and switched to VMware player. There was a free version floating around.... Odd. I have used Virtualbox for a number of distros, and have never run into an issue. It's been while now since I used it, but that seems strange to me....might give me something to look into while at work today, |
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Yeah I use a synology NAS as well and it works great. Quoted:
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The iSCSI on my synology disk station plays great with esx though not the cheapest solution. I here that freenas has decent iSCSI support and zfs as well. Quoted:
If can get the gear together for a NAS and work with iSCSI shared storage it can open up your possibilities. Just remember to crawl->walk->run. Yeah I use a synology NAS as well and it works great. 3 virtualization/storage guys agree then.
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