2018-2019 Software Development Setup

Every few years, I like to try out something new, and one of the new things I wanted to use was Hyper-V. Hyper-V is a hypervisor software that is designed by Microsoft.

One of the key reasons why I wanted to use it was because it is a virtualization software that should be better optimized than Oracle's VirtualBox. However, there were some trade-offs. Since the support for using Linux as a guest OS is not complete, I lose out on some GUI flexibility such as being able to adjust my screen resolution. Though, I was able to modify one of the bootloader configuration files in order to achieve a customer resolution; this would not be something that I would not have in VirtualBox.

My system is loaded with 32Gb of Ddr4 ram, which is critical when running a guest OS, chrome and an IDE. The system is powered by an unlocked 7th gen Intel i7, overclock whenever I need to game. The system is running Windows 10 pro, which I am slowly regretting as Microsoft continues to move pro features down to home users. And as I mentioned earlier, I am using Hyper-V in order to run a Linux VM, since WSL does not meet all my needs. Inside the Linux VM, I have Docker, Samba, and Squid setup. I use Docker to emulate different web environment, Samba is used so that I can share files from the Linux VM to the host. And I use Squid as a proxy service so that the host can access the docker container. For my IDE, I have grown to like Microsoft Visual Studio code. While it is a lightweight ide, features can be added by installing extensions. For those web developer out there, having a powerful REST API tester is important, which is why I like using Postman.

For roughly 2 years, I have enjoyed the power of using both Windows and Linux. Unlike the WSL setup, the Linux VM with less compromises and have it's own dedicated virtual HDD. While this setup may not be the best setup for everyone, this setup works for me. And who knows, maybe I will find something new.