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Do you need to dual boot? I switched to using Linux full time, and running Windows in a VM when needed. It also simplifies the workflows because you don't need

Do you need to dual boot? I switched to using Linux full time, and running Windows in a VM when needed. It also simplifies the workflows because you don't need to reboot to switch between the systems

jazoom 8y ago
How well does windows run in a VM? Will I be able to smoothly use image editing software such as Affinity Photo?
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I run Windows 10 Pro under VirtualBox on Ubuntu - hardware is a Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7). Performance is basically native, I use it for PhotoShop and for video editing in Premiere. I was even playing with Propellorhead Reason the other day dabbling in making some music.
  - jazoom 8y ago
    Nice to hear, thanks. Is there any weirdness I should know about? For example, when I run some Linux distros in a VM the mouse movements are jarring. I'd love to do all development in Linux again but dual booting was too annoying. The way you do it sounds interesting.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      VMware has well implemented integration tools that take care of mouse transfer, clipboard, and resizing the desktop. Windows in a Linux VM works well there.
      - jazoom 8y ago
        Thanks. I'll have to give this a try sometime soon.
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    > Performance is basically native Modern x86's have instruction set extensions to make VMs almost free of any overhead. The only performance hit you have is for the memory you don't allocate to the VM.
    - noinsight 8y ago
      Except for the graphics performance which is still terrible...
      - rbanffy 8y ago
        That would require GPU makers to, at least, document their hardware and offer workload partitioning.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      > The only performance hit you have is for the memory you don't allocate to the VM. Also disk I/O. Increased disk latency can kill the VM performance, and it will increase, if the virtual disk is inside a (sparse) file, inside a filesystem.
- Grimm665 8y ago
  I use Windows 10 Enterprise via KVM on Fedora 29. It works quite well, even for more intensive tasks. I do not have a dedicated GPU, so I am not sure about image editing. The only thing I've noticed that is a bit annoying (and it happens in almost any virtual environment) is real-time audio for stuff like video conferencing. When I conference with people who insist on using WebEx or Skype for Business, the audio though the Windows VM is always popping and skipping slightly. Never enough to disrupt the meeting, but it can be annoying.
  - jazoom 8y ago
    Also good to know. Thank you.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
In my case I don't think there's much that's Windows only that I can't use on my Phone (like Office) or Tablet. The only laptop I'm keeping with Windows is my Surface Book 2, I did boot Kubuntu on it to test it out, it looked beautiful but unless Microsoft officially supports Linux on their devices I don't think I will bother, it's nice and works, so I can't complain. The only other machine I have with Windows is a desktop I never turn off, so it updates itself when I'm not around.
rbanffy 8y ago
There was a time my business relied on a Windows-only browser app for several banking operations. The thing I liked most about the VM is that it was immutable - the moment I rebooted, it went back to its previous state. For updates, I made it mutable, applied only the updates and made it immutable again.
smacktoward 8y ago
If you're running Windows to play games, you need your virtualized Windows to be able to take 100% control (or close to 100%, anyway) of the GPU to get equivalent performance to playing the same game on Windows running directly on the hardware. This "GPU passthrough" turns out to be complicated to do, particularly on VirtualBox, which ('cuz it's free) is the virtualization platform your average hobby user is likely to be using. (Which is too bad, because I would love to be able to stop dual booting just to be able to play some games.)
- jackhack 8y ago
  I've found the performance penalty in practice to be only a few percentages, since virtualization is supported at the hardware level / HyperV. Essentially undetectable. YMMV. Parallels Desktop and/or VMware Fusion are superior (IMO) for GPU passthrough, but virtualbox can work. As to why someone would want to run this; there is a case where dual-boot is the only alternative : the practical difficulty, if you're a developer who runs Docker -- it doesn't play well with VirtualBox. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on-the-same-machine/23578/7 https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on... In this case, a dual-boot is a superior solution.
  - Nullabillity 8y ago
    > As to why someone would want to run this; there is a case where dual-boot is the only alternative : the practical difficulty, if you're a developer who runs Docker -- it doesn't play well with VirtualBox. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on.. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on.... Not quite. That only applies to "Docker for Windows/Mac", while a developer primarily running Linux would presumably run native Docker. More generally, the actual problem here is that there can generally only be one hypervisor running at a time, since it grabs exclusive control of some system resources. Docker itself isn't a hypervisor, but DfW/M use the native hypervisor of their respective OS (Hyper-V and Hypervisor.Framework, respectively) to run the Linux distro boot2docker (where the actual Docker Engine is ran), and neither of those like to coexist with Virtualbox. There is also the older Docker Toolbox (for both Windows and macOS) that used Virtualbox as its backing hypervisor, and so will happily coexist with other Vbox VMs. But all of this is about coexisting hypervisors at the same "level". Some hypervisors (such as KVM) support nested virtualization, in which case you could run any (one) other hypervisor inside a VM managed by that hypervisor. For testing purposes I have ran DfW inside KVM, and it worked fine (if a bit slow).
EamonnMR 8y ago
I'm dualbooting so that I can use Reason (music software) and the occasional game, but I'm picking up Renoise which runs on Linux (and is more suited to mouse-less composition.) I'll probably still arrange, mix, and master in Reason though (but I'll do that on my gaming machine which is still running win7.)

Do you need to dual boot? I switched to using Linux full time, and running Windows in a VM when needed. It also simplifies the workflows because you don't need to reboot to switch between the systems

jazoom 8y ago

How well does windows run in a VM? Will I be able to smoothly use image editing software such as Affinity Photo?

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I run Windows 10 Pro under VirtualBox on Ubuntu - hardware is a Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7). Performance is basically native, I use it for PhotoShop and for video editing in Premiere. I was even playing with Propellorhead Reason the other day dabbling in making some music.
- jazoom 8y ago
  Nice to hear, thanks. Is there any weirdness I should know about? For example, when I run some Linux distros in a VM the mouse movements are jarring. I'd love to do all development in Linux again but dual booting was too annoying. The way you do it sounds interesting.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    VMware has well implemented integration tools that take care of mouse transfer, clipboard, and resizing the desktop. Windows in a Linux VM works well there.
    - jazoom 8y ago
      Thanks. I'll have to give this a try sometime soon.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  > Performance is basically native Modern x86's have instruction set extensions to make VMs almost free of any overhead. The only performance hit you have is for the memory you don't allocate to the VM.
  - noinsight 8y ago
    Except for the graphics performance which is still terrible...
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      That would require GPU makers to, at least, document their hardware and offer workload partitioning.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    > The only performance hit you have is for the memory you don't allocate to the VM. Also disk I/O. Increased disk latency can kill the VM performance, and it will increase, if the virtual disk is inside a (sparse) file, inside a filesystem.
Grimm665 8y ago
I use Windows 10 Enterprise via KVM on Fedora 29. It works quite well, even for more intensive tasks. I do not have a dedicated GPU, so I am not sure about image editing. The only thing I've noticed that is a bit annoying (and it happens in almost any virtual environment) is real-time audio for stuff like video conferencing. When I conference with people who insist on using WebEx or Skype for Business, the audio though the Windows VM is always popping and skipping slightly. Never enough to disrupt the meeting, but it can be annoying.
- jazoom 8y ago
  Also good to know. Thank you.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

In my case I don't think there's much that's Windows only that I can't use on my Phone (like Office) or Tablet. The only laptop I'm keeping with Windows is my Surface Book 2, I did boot Kubuntu on it to test it out, it looked beautiful but unless Microsoft officially supports Linux on their devices I don't think I will bother, it's nice and works, so I can't complain. The only other machine I have with Windows is a desktop I never turn off, so it updates itself when I'm not around.

rbanffy 8y ago

There was a time my business relied on a Windows-only browser app for several banking operations. The thing I liked most about the VM is that it was immutable - the moment I rebooted, it went back to its previous state. For updates, I made it mutable, applied only the updates and made it immutable again.

smacktoward 8y ago

If you're running Windows to play games, you need your virtualized Windows to be able to take 100% control (or close to 100%, anyway) of the GPU to get equivalent performance to playing the same game on Windows running directly on the hardware. This "GPU passthrough" turns out to be complicated to do, particularly on VirtualBox, which ('cuz it's free) is the virtualization platform your average hobby user is likely to be using. (Which is too bad, because I would love to be able to stop dual booting just to be able to play some games.)

jackhack 8y ago
I've found the performance penalty in practice to be only a few percentages, since virtualization is supported at the hardware level / HyperV. Essentially undetectable. YMMV. Parallels Desktop and/or VMware Fusion are superior (IMO) for GPU passthrough, but virtualbox can work. As to why someone would want to run this; there is a case where dual-boot is the only alternative : the practical difficulty, if you're a developer who runs Docker -- it doesn't play well with VirtualBox. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on-the-same-machine/23578/7 https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on... In this case, a dual-boot is a superior solution.
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  > As to why someone would want to run this; there is a case where dual-boot is the only alternative : the practical difficulty, if you're a developer who runs Docker -- it doesn't play well with VirtualBox. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on.. https://forums.docker.com/t/running-docker-and-virtualbox-on.... Not quite. That only applies to "Docker for Windows/Mac", while a developer primarily running Linux would presumably run native Docker. More generally, the actual problem here is that there can generally only be one hypervisor running at a time, since it grabs exclusive control of some system resources. Docker itself isn't a hypervisor, but DfW/M use the native hypervisor of their respective OS (Hyper-V and Hypervisor.Framework, respectively) to run the Linux distro boot2docker (where the actual Docker Engine is ran), and neither of those like to coexist with Virtualbox. There is also the older Docker Toolbox (for both Windows and macOS) that used Virtualbox as its backing hypervisor, and so will happily coexist with other Vbox VMs. But all of this is about coexisting hypervisors at the same "level". Some hypervisors (such as KVM) support nested virtualization, in which case you could run any (one) other hypervisor inside a VM managed by that hypervisor. For testing purposes I have ran DfW inside KVM, and it worked fine (if a bit slow).

EamonnMR 8y ago

I'm dualbooting so that I can use Reason (music software) and the occasional game, but I'm picking up Renoise which runs on Linux (and is more suited to mouse-less composition.) I'll probably still arrange, mix, and master in Reason though (but I'll do that on my gaming machine which is still running win7.)