I use a Mac at home and a PC at work. Obviously, having only two operating systems in my life isn't enough. Once I had got used to all the short cuts, tips and tricks and so on, I would have to actually have to get some proper work done. This can't be allowed to happen.
So this is my idea. I have installed VirtualBox on my home and work computers. What I need is a distro of Linux that I can work on at home, then export to a memory stick. When I get to work I can import the file to VirtualBox on the PC on my desk. Then when I go home... well you get the picture. The point being that I will have a daily backup of a system that I can install on any computer anywhere. I also get to play with Linux.
It is working out okay so far. I have tried and rejected Damn Small Linux. It had the great advantage of speed and size, but didn't really support any software that I would actually want to use. I am currently evaluating Ubuntu and Debian, with Puppy being my next trial.
Great idea.
I'm a heavy virtualbox user but I've never tried that. I guess I'll see if it works in Snow Leopard and see how exporting works.
Will be intrested to understand how you make the export import work.. Could you not just run your virtual image from a USB thumb drive or a small external portable HD?
VirtualBox has a simple import/export function. You just export a machine on one machine and import it on another. The difficult bit is that these files are enormous - my current Debian installation is 3.7Gb. Its only now that you can get cheap big USB drives that what I am proposing is possible.
Running an operating system off a thumb drive is a bit of a different project. You would have to boot up from the USB drive, so you couldn't just pop into it for 10 minutes or so like you can with a virtual machine. The way I am working I arrive and copy the files from my USB and install them into VirtualBox and once they have copied over I can drop into them whenever I like. It takes a long time to get set up but I can still use my computer while I am waiting. If the worse comes to the worse I can always kill the time by doing some work.
So far it is working okay but I am already running into the problems of handling really big files. They seem to be prone to a lot of copying errors, and it is frustrating to have a file that took an hour or so to create, copy and install not working.
I have learnt a lot about Linux and the way memory is handled along the way, so I think it has been worth it.
You may be able to direct VirtualBox as to where the VHD for your system is stored. That way you may be able to run it "off the USB stick" without all the mess. You'd have to beware of the "limited" life cycle of the flash memory though and not use it constantly for 5 years. :P
