I've been thinking of switching my rig's native OS to Linux and running Windows 10 (my current OS) in a VM, just to get my feet wet. I want to learn and move to Linux at my own pace while primarily still doing my day-to-day fucking about (including Steam and a few Windows Store apps) in Windows, at least to start with. Too comfortable with Microsoft's ecosystem to ditch my botnet just yet
My question is what's a good, lightweight Linux distro to just run VirtualBox in for now without much overhead, but with the potential to expand its functionality for general use in the future? Ideally I'd like spend as little time as possible dicking around with a command line while I'm starting out, both in installing Linux itself as well as running VirtualBox (and eventually more general Linux apps). I might also want to run other Linux distros in VMs to try them out, so I might be doing multiple VMs at once
I'd be running the native OS and vhds off of an SSD in an older machine, with parts mostly from around 2009-2010 (SSD is newer). It's a quad-core Phenom II with a 5770 for video and 6gb ram (ddr3). I believe the mobo is legacy-only, no UEFI, and I have two (NTFS-formatted) HDDs for my files/games, no RAID or anything. Dunno if any of that affects anything, just being thorough
Secondly, is there a way to move my existing physical Windows partition to a vhd so I won't have to deal with reinstalling and getting my apps set back up the way I like them, or am I going to have to start from scratch for my Windows VM?
How much RAM do you have, and how many cores is your machine?
Ethan Hill
the windows experience is gonna be awful in a virtualbox vm. the manly way is to use virt-manager with pcie passthru
Asher Morgan
just be sure to keep that vomit inside the box. tight.
Noah Parker
Right in the OP, 6gb ddr3 and a quad-core
Not familiar with virt-manager, is it just another VM software?
What, Windows?
Adam Perry
Why use wangblows at all?
Lucas Morgan
just make another parititon for winshit (label: cesspit) for your shitware gaymes, data mining, viruses, trojans etc.
Nathaniel Ross
Start off by running Linux in the VM and keep Windows as your host. Use Linux for more and more until you're running it full-screen nearly all the time and are totally comfortable with it, including the CLI. Distro hop in a way that is simple, fast, and stress free until you find the magical unicorn distro you can be happy with. THEN make Linux the host. Or don't ever, given that the kinds of things you'd rely on Windows for (aka vidya), are shit on a VM, and your overall experience will suffer way less if Windows is the host.
Personally, I think if you'll try things this way you'll quickly learn the easy way that Linux is complete and utter shit and actually manages to make Windows 10 sound appealing by comparison. Then you'll delete your VM and no harm done.
Leo Gomez
>Start off by running Linux in the VM and keep Windows as your host That is fucking retarded. The host should be more secure than the guest.
Landon Walker
it is but i dont think ops main concern is ultimate security but rather just simply learning linux
Lincoln Barnes
>virt-manager Isn't that kinda baseded?
Actually, if I intend to use a GUI to manage my VMs, is there a way to remotely manage them via virt-manager or something else? I'm not keen on installing an x-server and using VNC on my hypervisor system.
Thomas Ross
Xubuntu would be the best experience. Or Manjaro/Arch with Xfce. 6GB ddr3 isn't enough for running a virtual machine. You'll have shit performance since any OS will need 2GB of RAM, OSs which need less are generally less convenient to use. Integrated graphics is also kinda bad since dedicated+integrated gives you the option of pci passthrough. On your current hardware it's better to just dual boot. Also Windows 7 is much better in a VM than W10.
Xavier Bailey
I started by running windows in a VM on a windows host just to get the feeling for it, performance issues, and so on. Then I switched to a linux host with the same VM guest image.
Thomas Bell
I don't have integrated graphics, just the 5770
6GB sucks though, huh? Shame
Ryder White
virt-manager is just a frontend gui for underlying systems like libvirt and vfio. yes you can remotely control
Hudson Rivera
I wager there's no Windows client, right?
Jace Johnson
Oh shit, I thought it was an fx CPU. Well, yes. 6GB isn't ideal even if you're not making VMs. Unless you won't use Linux for anything while using windows. I guess you could use 1GB for Linux and 5GB for windows. In which case you should use Xfce or not even use a DE. But in order to get proper performance you need to make a pci passthrough, and install the systems on separate HDDs or onto an SSD.
Asher Sanders
you're concerned about running a gui on your hypervisor but yet you want to control the hypervisor with windows?
Zachary King
Yes. Basically, my concerns are two-fold. On the one hand, I don't want to install superfluous stuff on my hypervisor if I can avoid it. Shit like an x-server. After all, the system is running on four gigs of RAM and a Celeron CPU. In addition, I want things to be "neat". I'd much rather launch a single tool on my main system (which is Windows) than log into my hypervisor via VNC just to use a GUI tool. I'm okay with SSH, but using a GUI/mouse interface over a VNC connection just feels off. If my only option is to use the Linux version of virt-manager, I'll set up a Linux VM on my main system. But again, I'd much rather just have a single tool I can open and be done with, similar to XenCenter.
Chase Anderson
Not OP, but along similar tracks.
Is there a way to find out if a computer has VT-d? I have a Dell T3500 with a Xeon 5650, the CPU has VT-x and VT-d but I don't know if the motherboard supports it.
Gavin Phillips
check uefi noob
Levi Reyes
Motherboard doesn't matter, the instruction set is in the CPU Check here ark.intel.com/
Dominic Jackson
Right, but I thought some features like VT-d weren't supported on lower end Intel chipsets. I must be mistaken then. That's fine. Maybe I'll get another low end Quadro to pass one through to the VM.
Camden Wright
>and running Windows 10 (my current OS) in a VM no point
