Hi, I’m an old windows user who have played with linux* a few times, but never commited to it.
I want to dive deeper and I though about installing linux in a VM. Some basic questions:
- Is that a good idea? / Anything I should take into account?
- Is there any preferred VM manager for this? Windows comes with Hyper-V, but I remember reading about how Hyper-V is not ideal (I could be wrong).
- Do different distributions work better or worse on VMs?
- Are there any major differences when using linux in a VM compared to a bare metal installation?
And some not-so-basic ones:
- Is there any [dis]advantage to “Linux VM on Windows” VS “Windows VM on Linux”?
- If I start with “Linux VM on Windows”, would it be possible to swap them in the future? What I mean is:
- Virtualize the Windows installation so it can be run as a VM.
- Un-virtualize the Linux VM (with all its contents and configuration) and move it to bare metal.
- Run Windows VM on linux.
Notes:
- I did a quick search and, although I found multiple articles about the topic, the ones I’ve read just show one way to do it without comparing it to the alternatives.
- I’m aware of WSL(2), but I would like to be able to decouple from Windows in the future.
- EIDT: I tried dual booting in the past. The main problem is that I’m too lazy to reboot every time I want to try something in linux and I end up not using it.
Thanks!
* Mandatory linux = GNU/Linux
If you’re interested in making a full jump to Linux at some point, then you’d probably be interested in dual-booting instead of using VM for Windows or Linux.
I think it’s far less invasive to setup a Linux VM that can be thrown away vs. setting up dual booting.
With Hyper-V or Virtualbox the OP can have a Linux distribution installed and booting very quickly without fear of disrupting his current Windows installation.
You’re right, but is it easy to convert a VM to a physical machine? I’ve never tried, so I’m genuinely asking.
Generally yes, but I’ve been working with VMs on various platforms for a very long time, so I’m probably not the best to qualify on what easy is. How easy will depend on what software you are using.
I’ve done many physical to virtual, and the very rare virtual to physical. Both can have problems you may need to work through (almost always driver related).
It’s definitely possible to convert in both directions. I’ve never done it though. The technical hurdles made it unpalatable. My main method of moving back and forth was to keep my personal data on a separate disk from the OS disk. That way I could always take my data with me when I changed OSes or VMs.
I’ve always gone the other way, and ran my dual booting capable install in a virtual machine
I think if you can convert the virtualhard disk into raw files it should work the other way.
I would think so too, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if there was a catch.
I tried dual booting in the past. The main problem is that I’m too lazy to reboot every time I want to try something in linux and I end up not using it :/.
I hope that with VMs I can have a smoother transition being able to work with both of them at the same time.
I should have added that… thanks for the suggestion.
I used VirtualBox to test Linux distributions at first. What I loved doing was install it, put it in full screen and use it one or two days the whole day using it for serious tasks and to mess around. Didn’t game on it of course because graphical capabilities in VMs are severely diminished. Thanks to this I found my true love being Debian, and I’ve been using it every day for 2 years after I’ve installed it outside of the VM.
I still do it but now I mess around in PCem with Windows 9x and pre-XP NT releases.
Do you know of any advantage of using VirtualBox over Hyper-V?
VirtualBox drivers for Linux are bundled inside most Linux distributions, unlike Hyper-V’s. Also, Hyper-V is really meant for Windows.
Thanks!
I’m that way too. When I dual booted, I just let the default OS run. I find it better to use Linux on a VM. I’m on a mac now so I use VMs to run windows and Linux. I have a few flavors installed, but my default is Ubuntu.
What do you use Windows primarily for? If it’s not for online multiplayer gaming (which uses anti-cheat software), then you should do it the other way around, ie install Linux as your main OS and use Windows inside a VM. That way you will be sort of forced to use Linux and adjust, and you can always fire up your Windows VM if you need to.
The only program that I’m aware I need Windows for is Photoshop (I don’t know if Wine is an option or if that counts as "Windows).
So you’re probably right. The main reason I prefer to start with VMs is to try a few distributions before committing to one of them… and the laziness I get thinking about how to migrate my current Windows installation to a VM… or (even worse) reinstalling Windows from scratch :P.
You should definitely just do a fresh install of Windows instead of migrating. It takes less than 15 minutes to install, and since your only need is Photoshop, then you don’t need a bloated full-blown Windows - just install a “lite” version of Windows, like Tiny10 or Tiny11, which will also save you some RAM and CPU resources.
But sure, do check out Linux instead a VM first if you wanna try out a few distributions. Another option is to use Ventoy to create a bootable USB drive, then you can just chuck multiple Linux ISOs onto the USB and try them out, this way, you can test various distros on your actual hardware (which is always handy for testing compatibility) without needing to install anything first.