Questions about running Linux in a VM on Windows - eviltoast

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

  • eddanja@lemmy.world
    31·
    1 year ago

    It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

    If you want a pretty desktop environment or you need all the bells and whistles of a specific Linux distribution (Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, CentOS, etc.) then a virtualize environment is probably the way to go.

    If you just want to get used to playing with Linux commands using bash and you only need about 80% of the full functionality of a pure Linux environment, then Windows offers the Subsystem for Linux which installs like an app you can run at anytime.

    I personally use the subsystem for Linux on my Windows work laptop so I can quickly write Python scripts and test application configs for production servers. It’s quick and dirty and I can easily share files between Windows and Linux. It also has a small footprint on the computer as oppose to a VM.

    Whatever you decide, have fun! Linux is awesome.