

distrowatch poll -- dual booting versus virtual machines
#1 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 12:29 AM
Seems that there are far too many times when I pass on voting in those polls because either the questions are poorly worded or there's no voting option that seems to fit my situation.
Anyway, here's a link: https://www.distrowa...ue=current#poll
Some interesting posts in the comments section there, too.
#2 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 05:18 AM


Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#4 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 07:27 AM
I have never been a fan of multibooting and VMs are okay for a trial but they can't give you the Full Monty. OK maybe KVM can do that but I mostly want VMs for Windows.

#5 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 08:02 AM
raymac46, on 23 April 2018 - 07:27 AM, said:
I have never been a fan of multibooting and VMs are okay for a trial but they can't give you the Full Monty. OK maybe KVM can do that but I mostly want VMs for Windows.
You just have to give the machines enough cpu cores and ram, then they will run like on normal hardware. For instance, I will give a window's vm 8-16gb of ram and 4 cores while a linux distro generally only needs 4-8gb of ram and 2 cores.


Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#6 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 09:46 AM
#7 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 10:30 AM
So I think that "live" sessions and dual- or multi-booting are preferable to a VM in my case.
Years back, I did dual-boot Windows and Linux for awhile, though. However, then I decided to keep those on separate computers. Not long after that, I actually gave away my Windows computer, and that was the end of that.
Edited by saturnian, 23 April 2018 - 10:31 AM.
#8 ONLINE
#9 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 07:08 PM





For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
#10 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 07:36 PM
sunrat, on 23 April 2018 - 07:08 PM, said:

Quadruple boot


Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#11 OFFLINE
Posted 23 April 2018 - 10:49 PM
#12 OFFLINE
#13 ONLINE
#14 OFFLINE
Posted 26 April 2018 - 06:39 AM
Edited by Dr. J, 26 April 2018 - 06:40 AM.
~/hungover
#15 OFFLINE
Posted 26 April 2018 - 07:56 AM
Dr. J, on 26 April 2018 - 06:39 AM, said:
I setup my daughter's college laptop this way, with Win7. She's pretty tech-savvy, but something got corrupted during a required installation of Adobe CS during her freshman year; the Win7 VM would boot, but then just froze in place. It would have been very frustrating to troubleshoot and/or repair. Fortunately, we had a Win7 VM on her backup drive (yay, LuckyBackups!). We nuked her corrupted VM, copied over the backup VM, and booted into her freshly re-installed Win7 VM in about 15 minutes...and about 13-14 of those minutes were just waiting for the computer to finish its copy/paste sequence.
How many troubleshooting/repairing hours did we save? MANY! The time spent on the initial setup of that VM, and creation of a backup VM, paid off many times over in that scenario!
#16 OFFLINE
Posted 26 April 2018 - 08:53 AM
Hedon James, on 26 April 2018 - 07:56 AM, said:
Dr. J, on 26 April 2018 - 06:39 AM, said:
I setup my daughter's college laptop this way, with Win7. She's pretty tech-savvy, but something got corrupted during a required installation of Adobe CS during her freshman year; the Win7 VM would boot, but then just froze in place. It would have been very frustrating to troubleshoot and/or repair. Fortunately, we had a Win7 VM on her backup drive (yay, LuckyBackups!). We nuked her corrupted VM, copied over the backup VM, and booted into her freshly re-installed Win7 VM in about 15 minutes...and about 13-14 of those minutes were just waiting for the computer to finish its copy/paste sequence.
How many troubleshooting/repairing hours did we save? MANY! The time spent on the initial setup of that VM, and creation of a backup VM, paid off many times over in that scenario!
Very nice



Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#17 OFFLINE
Posted 26 April 2018 - 09:04 AM
Of course, I have some old ex-Windows machines which probably have Windows 7 OEM licenses but I don't want to set one of those up on a Linux VM that didn't run Windows originally.


#18 OFFLINE
Posted 26 April 2018 - 10:28 AM
raymac46, on 26 April 2018 - 09:04 AM, said:
Of course, I have some old ex-Windows machines which probably have Windows 7 OEM licenses but I don't want to set one of those up on a Linux VM that didn't run Windows originally.

BTW, the windows 7 key will activate Windows 10 and you can get the Win10 ISO straight from microsoft.com for free.


Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#19 ONLINE
#20 OFFLINE
Posted 27 April 2018 - 09:21 AM
I doubt I will use it much though. You still have all the same security issues and I much prefer Linux on this machine. Proof of concept.

#21 OFFLINE
Posted 27 April 2018 - 11:02 AM
raymac46, on 27 April 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:
I doubt I will use it much though. You still have all the same security issues and I much prefer Linux on this machine. Proof of concept.
Which version of 10 did you download as it works fine with the Windows 10 Insider Previews: https://www.microsof...siderpreviewiso
You just need an account. It's free if you do not have one.


Configs/PGP Key/comhack π ∞
"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984
#22 OFFLINE
Posted 27 April 2018 - 02:49 PM
raymac46, on 27 April 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:
I doubt I will use it much though. You still have all the same security issues and I much prefer Linux on this machine. Proof of concept.
Agreed. But backup that VM and if there's ever a corruption, you can restore the VM faster than you can troubleshoot and repair, FWIW. I MUCH prefer Linux, but there are times when I simply must use a Windows program...I don't have a choice. (for instance, Quickbooks Pro, at the insistence of my accountant). It's kinda nice to click on a VM icon, just like any other software program, and have QB Pro pop open in seamless mode, as if it was a native program. Best of both worlds, IMO, with very little additional downside. FWIW...
#23 OFFLINE
Posted 27 April 2018 - 07:54 PM
securitybreach, on 27 April 2018 - 11:02 AM, said:
raymac46, on 27 April 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:
I doubt I will use it much though. You still have all the same security issues and I much prefer Linux on this machine. Proof of concept.
Which version of 10 did you download as it works fine with the Windows 10 Insider Previews: https://www.microsof...siderpreviewiso
You just need an account. It's free if you do not have one.
This download tool works great.
https://www.heidoc.n...o-download-tool
Edited by raymac46, 27 April 2018 - 08:08 PM.

#24 OFFLINE
Posted 27 April 2018 - 07:59 PM
So now I have a Windows host with a Linux guest and a Linux host with a Windows guest. That covers most of the bases I suppose.

#25 OFFLINE
Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:08 PM
In Stretch, I created /etc/grub.d/11_kubuntu_sda5_custom:
#!/bin/sh -e echo "Adding Kubuntu on sda5" cat << EOF menuentry "Kubuntu 18.04 (on /dev/sda5)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { set root=(hd0,gpt5) linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 ro initrd /initrd.img } EOF
Made the file executable, made 30_os-prober non-executable, ran update-grub, rebooted. This actually worked (yes, I was kinda surprised that it worked!). Old dogs really can learn new tricks, sometimes.
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