Since I understood MEPIS was derived from Debian, I followed very much the same procedure as for Debian Lenny.

1. I downloaded SimplyMEPIS-7.0-32.iso from http://www.mepis.org/mirror.

2. I created a VMware Worstation virtual machine with the following settings:

• OS: Linux, Other 2.6.x Linux
• RAM: 512 Mb
• Disk space: 8 Gb
• Disk type: SCSI
• Sound card: Auto detect
• USB: Auto detect
• Network adapter: NAT
• Processors: 2

3.  The install wizard proved very simple to follow and my virtual machine was set up in a matter of minutes. I took the opportunity to take a snapshot of the VM, just in case.

4. I started the installation of the VMware Tools and realised, as I expected by then, that the linux headers were missing.

I therefore opened an xterm, and entered as root:

# apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

As GCC was already installed, I did not have to install it nor make.

However, I was not able to give the Tools’ installer the right path to the kernel source and typed instead:

# ln -sf /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r) /usr/src/linux

The install process went smoothly thereafter although, again as was the case for Lenny, I needed to add Option “CorePointer” in the mouse-related section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, as follows:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “VMware Mouse”
Driver “vmmouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Protocol” “ps/2″
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “false”
Option “Emulate3Timeout” “70″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Buttons” “5″
EndSection

That was it and everything worked fine, as promised on the MEPIS homepage!

OK, so OpenSolaris is not a Linux distribution; its lineage differs from, say, Ubuntu’s. However, as an end user, what I am really interested in is how well it fits with my own particular requirements as my potential alternative OS.

1. First off, I downloaded the CD ISO image, osol-0811.iso, from http://opensolaris.org/os/downloads/#use.

2. I created a VM, following loosely the instructions from http://www.deviantptr.net/blog/opensolaris/20081027/.

The key settings I chose are as follows:

• OS: Solaris, Solaris 10
• RAM: 768 Mb
• Disk space: 8 Gb
• Disk type: SCSI
• Sound card: Auto detect
• USB: Auto detect
• Network adapter: NAT
• Processors: 2

The LiveCD booted without any problem and I was soon able to access the live desktop.
First impressions were positive: OpenSolaris is responsive and a number of applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird are pre-installed.
Eye candy-wise, OpenSolaris uses a nicely themed Gnome as its window manager. Unfortunately, no sound was coming out of my speakers.

3. Time to install OpenSolaris on my VM by clicking on the Install OpenSolaris icon.

The install itself took place smoothly albeit painfully slowly.
As usual, I had to restart the VM at the end of the process. No issue to report (besides the sound still not working).

4. Right then, last step as always: install the VMware Tools.

As usual, VMware Workstation automatically mounted the tools which I extracted onto my hard drive.
On the basis of previous bad experiences, I took a snapshot of the VM before I ran

# ./vmware-install.pl

Interestingly, for once, I did not have to recompile the modules and it all looked fine after I configured my display settings. Still no sound though.

I restarted the VM and waited. And waited. And waited. And realised the screen would remain black ad vitam eternam!

So, I reverted to the snapshot I had taken earlier, started browsing, and finally stumbled upon http://communities.vmware.com/message/951352 that suggests replacing the Xorg video driver with the one from before the installation:

# cd /usr/X11/lib/modules/drivers
# mv vmware_drv.so vmware_drv.so.AfterVMwareToolsInstall
# cp vmware_drv.so.BeforeVMwareToolsInstall vmware_drv.so

(Note: I realise the second command is not necessary but I am reluctant to overwrite the VMware driver, just in case a better solution comes along that requires it.)

Not ideal as this meant I would not be able to use the dedicated VMware driver and would lose some of the added functionality but at least I might be able to use the VM.

I ran vmware-install.pl again, and I switched the drivers BEFORE I restarted OpenSolaris.

5. It worked (including the all-important seamless mouse capture) although I still had no sound.

Trying to address this problem, I rushed into a number half-baked solutions I found on the web, in particular installing the Open Sound System (OSS) Driver for OpenSolaris which yielded rather unstable and unsatisfactory results.
I downloaded the package for my machine and installed it:

# pkgadd -d oss-solaris-v4.1-1051-i386.pkg

I rebooted the VM, waited for OpenSolaris to restart, successfully ran osstest, tried to play an audio CD… and failed!
It was only after I switched the VM sound card setting from Auto detect to my specific card and restarted the VM that I could manage to play audio files. Unfortunately, this setup was not viable as OpenSolaris sometimes still refused to play audio files..

I then discovered the sound drivers in http://www.tools.de/opensource/solaris/audio/ and http://www.tools.de/opensource/solaris/audio/beta/. I uninstalled OSS, downloaded the beta package, and installed it

[Just a quick update: it appears the drivers are not available from the tools.de website anymore; after some serious googling, I found audio-1.9beta-i86pc.pkg.bz2 can still be downloaded from http://blog.sun.com/roller/resources/le/audio-1.9beta-i86pc.pkg.bz2.]

# pkgadd -d audio-1.9beta-i86pc.pkg

Finally, after restarting the virtual machine, I could enjoy sound coming out of my speakers.

After a few days using OpenSolaris, I am very pleased with it.  Along with Debian 5.0, it looks like a strong candidate for my alternative OS.

1. I downloaded debian-500-i386-kde-CD-1.iso from http://www.debian.com/CD/http-ftp/.

2. I created a VMware Workstation virtual machine with the following settings:

• OS: Linux, Other 2.6.x Linux
• RAM: 512 Mb
• Disk space: 8 Gb
• Disk type: SCSI
• Sound card: Auto detect
• USB: Auto detect
• Network adapter: NAT
• Processors: 2

and followed the instructions on my screen to install without any problem Lenny on my virtual machine.

3. Since everything (e.g., sound, internet) was working satisfactorily, I took a snapshot of the VM and endeavoured to install the VMware Tools.

VMware Workstation mounted the tools which I extracted onto my hard drive. I then ran as root

# ./vmware-install.pl

I accepted all the default settings but as was the case for openSUSE, the kernel headers were not pre-installed so I followed a similar-ish procedure to obtain them:

# apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

and ran vmware-install.pl again. I was notified I did not have a C compiler installed so I entered:

# apt-get install gcc

and

# apt-get install make

for good measure, on the basis of my previous openSUSE experience.

vmware-install.pl failed again because my newly installed version of GCC was too recent. Fortunately the older version was also installed and it was a matter of

# ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 /usr/bin/gcc

I confidently ran vmware-install.pl again and was delighted when the VMware Tools successfully installed… Or so I thought.

After restarting the X server (Crtl-Alt-Backspace), I realised my mouse was not working correctly anymore.

Although this was not related to the problem, I first reactivated the latest version of GCC:

# ln -sf /usr/bin/gcc-4.3 /usr/bin/gcc

and started googling; I soon realised this was a known VMware Tools issue and I merely needed to add Option “CorePointer” in the mouse-related section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, like so:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “VMware Mouse”
Driver “vmmouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Protocol” “ps/2″
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “false”
Option “Emulate3Timeout” “70″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Buttons” “5″
EndSection

I then restarted the X server and could enjoy a perfectly integrated Lenny virtual machine.

Overall, I have to say I am rather impressed by this distro as I am getting more and more familiarised with it.

1. I started by downloading openSUSE-11.1-KDE4-LiveCD-i686.iso from http://software.opensuse.org/.

2. I created a VMware Workstation virtual machine with the following settings:

• OS: Linux, SUSE Linux
• RAM: 512 Mb
• Disk space: 8 Gb
• Disk type: SCSI
• Sound card: Auto detect
• USB: Auto detect
• Network adapter: NAT
• Processors: 2

The installer offered me a number of options: I chose “openSUSE Live” and was quickly welcomed by a beautiful desktop. Since my intention was to create a virtual openSUSE computer, I clicked on the Install icon, which resulted in a warning about my computer having less that 1 GB of memory; perhaps foolishly, I decided to ignore it.

I was then taken by a friendly install wizard through a number of screens where I accepted all the default settings, ignored the complaints about the strength of my chosen password and confirmed I wished the install to take place.
After a few minutes, I was asked to restart the computer (or the virtual machine in my case). A lot of activity took place on my screen for the next 3 minutes or so but I was not asked to do anything apart from removing the ISO CD.

Finally, I was prompted for my credentials. On login, the internet seemed to work fine but I was notified the playback was not working properly for my particular soundcard.
However, I was impressed I could move freely my mouse in and out of the VM even though I had not yet installed the VMware Tools.

3. I took a snapshot of the virtual machine and started installing the tools.

VMware Workstation mounted the tools; I opened a Konsole as root and entered

# rpm – i /media/VMware\ Tools/VMwareTools-7.8.4-126130.i386.rpm

before running vmware-install.pl.

After a number of questions about where I intended to copy the various Tools components (I accepted the proposed locations), I was told to run /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl.
I obediently did but was then notified I had no C compiler installed.

After familiarising myself with the openSUSE package management strategy, I tried

# yast -i gcc

which worked fine.

So I tried /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl again, this time to get a cryptic message about a number of modules that needed removing. Where to find these was not indicated but after a little while, I managed to find them in /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/updates/.

I therefore deleted the offending modules and gave another go to /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl. Only to to be told I needed make installed:

# yast -i make

I ran /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl for the fourth time and got a warning on my version of gcc which I ignored (getting a little tired here!).
I then had to try and guess where the kernel headers were hiding (/usr/include/ was the right answer) before being rudely told the directory of kernel headers (version 2.6.27) did not match my running kernel (2.6.27.7-9-default).

Unsurprisingly, YaST did not have the faintest about kernel-headers-2.6.27.7-9-default.
So, as a last-ditch effort, I asked YaST2 to install whatever linux-source package it could find in its repositories, which happened to be 2.6.27.7-9.1-i586.
To my surprise and relief, everything went well and completed successfully when I ran /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl one last time.

In summary, the installation of openSUSE itself was very easy and resulted in a system pretty much ready to use, with the exception of the sound device, still not working correctly.
However, the VMware Tools proved a bit too convoluted to install for my liking. Granted, this is not an openSUSE problem, rather a VMWare-Worstation-on-openSUSE problem but not the nicest introduction to the system regardless.

Wise, experienced Linuxians state that there is no definite answer, that it is up to me to find my favourite “distro”.  Thanks(!)
I can see where they are coming from, but this does not quite answer my question, does it?

OK… I need usability, reliability, performance, and support.
I do not think I am able to distinguish yet between two Linux distros in terms of reliability or performance. Unless, of course, one of them really misbehaved, e.g. ran at a snail pace or kept crashing…

Right, let’s focus on usability then. And sure enough, I run into the next big question: which window manager? As I understand it, although several window managers exist, two dominate the scene: KDE, based on Trolltech’s Qt, and Gnome, based on Gtk.
Again, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone willing to provide you with a recommendation, for exactly the same reasons as earlier. Besides, it seems that the KDE vs. Gnome debate triggers the same kind of flame war as the PC vs. Mac one.
The general opinion seems to be that vanilla Gnome has a cleaner (as in “plain”) look than vanilla KDE that boasts a richer (as in “busy”) interface. However, it would appear both are configurable and you can get each to look and behave like the other.

Frustrating. Very, very frustrating. Although I am learning stuff, I am none the wiser as to which Linux distribution to pick.

Let’s google then, keeping in mind I do not want to be left to my own devices so I need to make sure there is a friendly, dynamic community supporting the distribution I ultimately choose.
Ubuntu (and Kubuntu in its KDE incarnation), MEPIS, and openSUSE appear to be the popular distros the most frequently mentioned in the same breath as “beginner”. (Disclaimer: I realise this bold statement merely relies upon what my search engine feeds me but I have to start somewhere).
Interestingly, the first two are based upon another Linux distribution, Debian that happens to be on the verge of releasing its next generation, codenamed Lenny.

As I am lucky enough to have a reasonably fast Internet connection, I intend to download the CD ISO images of:

• Ubuntu 8.10
• OpenSUSE 11.1
• SimplyMEPIS 7
• Debian Lenny RC2

I will also test OpenSolaris 2008.11. Why? Because I can! Seriously, I would like to have a look at a straight UNIX distribution as well and Solaris is a reference in that field (and BSD doesn’t seem too newbie-friendly to me).

However, I am not ready yet to let go of my Windows machines for a couple of reasons:

1. I am new to Linux and often still struggle to get simple things done,
2. I am aware migrating to another platform is going to be a lengthy process as I have invested time, effort, and money in WinXP and even, to a lesser extent, Vista.

That’s why I am installing and testing my candidate OSes on virtual machines using VMware Workstation to ease the transition.

As I am not alone following that path, I thought I would document my experiences in the hope others may benefit from it.