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Virtual Machine or Dual Boot?

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MatteoX:
I was given an HP ZBook G3 laptop for free. The machine was decommissioned and has HD removed but it has 16 GB RAM. It has 2 slots for PCIe M.2 SSDs and another one for 2.5" HDD. I'll get an M.2 drive (most likely a 500 GB Samsung EVO 970) and maybe later a bigger 2.5" HD.

I am planning to install Ubuntu and Windows 10. Some software I need runs only on Windows, so I don't have a choice. Usage between the operating systems will be pretty much balanced (maybe 60% Windows, 40% Linux)

How do you guys configure your dual OS computers? Should I go with dual boot or virtual machine? Dual boot will be faster but VM is more convenient to switch. If I decide to use VM would it be better (re. performance ) to install Windows 10 and run Linux as VM or vice versa?

ajb:
First consideration is whether the software you want to run will work adequately under virtualization. I suspect windows applications are more likely to be picky about that than Linux applications, but it depends a lot on the specific software.  You may just have to try it and see.  If you have software that talks to specific USB hardware that may be a deal breaker.

MatteoX:

--- Quote from: ajb on May 03, 2020, 11:33:08 pm ---First consideration is whether the software you want to run will work adequately under virtualization. I suspect windows applications are more likely to be picky about that than Linux applications, but it depends a lot on the specific software.  You may just have to try it and see.  If you have software that talks to specific USB hardware that may be a deal breaker.

--- End quote ---

You are right. I completely forgot about USB and drivers for nonstandard/special hardware.

I used Linux just for development (mainly in c and c++) and run it as a VM on Windows without problems but didn't run any special USB drivers under it.

bill_c:
I run windowz as guest OS on several machines and never had problems with any USB devices.  I did have problems trying to use a special PCI card but was too lazy to see if it was possible to solve. Many games don't like virtual graphics.
If you only spend large chunks of time on an OS before switching to the other, then dual boot. if you switch between them often during testing stuff then VM is better but guest will be slightly slower. You can drag and drop files between host and guest, may not be as easy with dual boot.

greenpossum:
I run Windows XP in a VM to drive a TL866 programmer using USB forwarding. Works a treat. Yes I know about the TL866 CLI tools. Have also forwarded things like WiFi dongles and upgraded the firmware of a DVD drive on the host using a Windows guest.

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