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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Questions about running Linux in a VM on Windows (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you very much for the in-depth answers. It makes a lot of sense

I'm happy to say that most of the problems won't probably apply to me. I have a laptop with no dedicated GPU and I don't play high end games, so I think there will be no problem with that.

Is that a good idea?

If you keep in mind that it won't 100 % behave like a "proper" installation when things go weird it's fine.

It's probably impossible to list all the possible differences, but do you know what are the most common ones?

Thanks again!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s probably impossible to list all the possible differences, but do you know what are the most common ones?

The ones that I mentioned regarding direct hardware access of any sort.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh, sorry, I didn't link the 2 parts of your comment.