Dual Boot vs Virtual

[Omneitic]

I've been wanting to get back into the Linux game as I'm about to sell the only computer I had Linux on. I was wondering which setup would be better or recommended by users that have it here. If you could also support your reason why, I'd appreciate it. I have no plans to argue with you, just curious, that's all.

Virtual Box (VMware)
Windows on Hard Drive - Linux Virtual
Linux on Hard Drive - Windows Virtual

or

Dual-boot Linux & Windows

Note: The main reason I do not want dual boot is because there are programs and games that Linux simply will not run whether I use Wine to try to configure them or not. I do not want to have to change OS via booting due to that. For that reason, I've been leaning towards doing Linux in a virtual environment, but I do not know if Linux runs well in Virtual. I know that Windows does from my experiences at work.

Thoughts and suggestions please. Thanks

[Sope]

The main use of my current computer is for gaming so I have Windows 7 x64 OS installed.
I have dual booted Linux and XP in the past on my old computer, but as my newest one is capable of running VM's with ease, I only use Linux distro's as guest OS's under Virtualbox these days.

Reason's :-
1) I'm happy using Win 7 as my main OS and confident with my security setup.
2) I can install and play pretty much any game I choose without too much hassle (I mostly use Steam).
3) No worries with graphics card choice, drivers etc.
4) I can try out/use pretty much any Linux distro I choose and have any number installed at any one time, without all the hassle of partitioning and grub setup etc that goes with a multiple boot system.
5) I can also access XP in a VM if I want to.
6) Virtualbox is free, open source, fairly easy to learn and works fantastically well IMO.

I have my VM's installed on the first partition of a second HDD to maximise performance.
With this setup I find they run very smoothly alongside my Win 7 host.
I have to say, I'm more than satisfied with my current setup

[wdhpr]

Originally Posted by Sope

I have my VM's installed on the first partition of a second HDD to maximise performance.
With this setup I find they run very smoothly alongside my Win 7 host.

As Sope said, he has very little performance loss running Linux on his machine. However if you don't have a second hard drive and your computer is more than a few years old. You will find considerable loss of performance running Linux using VB. I believe we could give you better advice if you could give us more information about your computers hardware.

Cheers

[Omneitic]

HP Pavilion Slimline s5310f
AMD Athlon™ II X2 250 Processor 3.0GHz
640GB Serial ATA hard drive -- 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM memory
SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology DVD+RW
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE / nForce 430
Windows 7 Ultimate -- ESET Smart Security 4

Those are my system specifications and I do know how to partition my hard drive if that would increase performance to do it all that way. I would say I'm fairly advanced to expert level when it comes to Windows platforms. Let me know what you think is best. I'm looking forward to being a Linux noob again.

[crank]

I run linux on windows all the time and it works very well for me, but my machine has juice to spare. One big plus of doing it that way is not having licensing issues pesky-ing up everything.

[J_L]

Originally Posted by Omneitic

Those are my system specifications and I do know how to partition my hard drive if that would increase performance to do it all that way. I would say I'm fairly advanced to expert level when it comes to Windows platforms. Let me know what you think is best. I'm looking forward to being a Linux noob again.

I think it's more than enough. I've got a weaker processor, and still run virtual machines fine (although with 2 hard drives RAID0).

[wdhpr]

Originally Posted by crank

I run linux on windows all the time and it works very well for me, but my machine has juice to spare. One big plus of doing it that way is not having licensing issues pesky-ing up everything.

Wubi is a relatively painless way to use Linux with Win 7. There is even a how-to guide on this website.http://www.techsupportalert.com/cont...in-windows.htm

I have never used Win7 to any extent but the Linux forums I go to discuss dual booting extensively.
There are a few walkthrus that shows you how to install Linux on a computer that has Windows 7 preinstalled. Although Win 7 has a whole set of issue's to deal with.
http://lifehacker.com/5403100/dual+b...erfect-harmony
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/9059/...r-with-ubuntu/
There is even a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7XHm3SXLkw

Originally Posted by JL

I think it's more than enough. I've got a weaker processor, and still run virtual machines fine (although with 2 hard drives RAID0).

My understanding of things is that 2 hard drives works the best.

One last thing Jojoyee Has been dual booting win7 and Linux for some time now. Maybe you good PM him for some pointers.

[crank]

One very sweet sweet plus to dual booting linux with windows is how easy it is to examine, and nuke, all kinds of files that windows really gets uppity about you even looking at. I remember very well the horror I felt when I got my first look at what those mysterious 'System Volume Information' directories contained. WTF!!! There were 10 to 20 GB or more files in there. Of course, just using a live-CD will get you that also.

[eyeb]

the wubi installer for ubuntu installs ubuntu inside windows but lets you dual boot to it. The perfermance is pretty close/if noticable at all to an acutal partition install. I prefer installing linux this way. XPUD linux also installs to windows so I like xpud as well.

I do use linux to fix files/partition drives if windows won't so It is handy to have.

Another solution is booting linux from flash drives. I also do this since I can carry at least 1 OS with me. Also lets me have a secured OS to work from while away from my laptop (since I leave it at home )

edit: then there is the portable ubuntu that actually runs linux shell on top of windows so you get to use linux programs while using windows. This isn't something like virtual linux (with virtualbox/etc). However I'm not too sure how far they progressed in this so it may have been dropped before windows 7 was introduced and not working on windows 7. The draw back to this is like with virtualization software, it pulls more from the computer since it's essentially running 2 OS at once

edit again: I saw someone mention a slow processer, I'd use xpud installed to windows. The perfermance was great for my computer. It is very small, about 100mb so it runs light on system. But since it is so small, you'll have to download additional apps/drivers/etc. But even with those XPUD really does run better than ubuntu IMO. It's just not as pretty but it boots fast and has the essentials to surf web/email/game/movie/music