Choices For Virtual Environments/Machines, Window Managers, Distros, Etc Are Causing Immediate Options Paralysis

ryevick

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I'm still trying to sort out which distro I will go with (I'm guessing that's the first priority) but regarding running Linux, am I correct in thinking you can either boot from a USB Flash drive but working this way will not allow you to save preferences, etc you basically start from scratch every time or you can install in a virtual machine/environment? Or is a virtual machine created by Linux? I am currently running Windows 10 64 Pro and I have Hyper-V turned on via Windows Features basically because of this video:


There's also VirtualBox, VMware Workstation and probably many other options... which cause the top of my head to concave. I mean I don't want to sound completely lazy but I have a lot of plates in the air right now and it seems like getting into Linux requires massive amounts of reading articles, opinions and so on that really need you to carve out a portion of your life just to grasp. I know it's not Windows and I don't want it to be but geez...

Is Hyper-V sufficient to do whatever it is I need to do? Do particular distros require specific window managers and/or something else I'm not aware of?

I still plan on doing a multi-boot of 2 or 3 distros to become more familiar with them and hopefully discover the right one for me. Right now I'm thinking Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu but that's basically based on guesses.

If it matters, I'll list my PC specs:

Windows 10 Pro 64 / ASUS Z97-A / Intel i5-4670K Quad-Core 3.4 GHz / G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 / ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti / Focusrite Saffire PRO 40
 
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You can dual boot if you like, but if you are just wanting to get to know Linux it will be fine installing it in something like virtualbox which also runs under windows. If you were to dual boot and accidently do something wrong when setting up your dualboot with your bootloader it could break your uefi windows boot or your windows boot files if I remember correctly. I haven't run a dualboot system in a long time, but I come across forum posts every now and then where people ask for help when that happens. Once you get to know and understand Linux a bit better you can always try dual-booting. There are ways to install Linux on a usb drive with persistant storage but from my experience with that is that it's slow because of the speeds of usb drives.

With most Linux distros you don't need to really worry about windows managers because the DE's(Desktop Environments) that most distros come with have a default setup. Which you can of course customize later to your needs and likes.

That's just my two cents ;)
 
I agree with f33dm3bits about dual booting if you like. I would also go farther by saying if you want to use Linux, pick one, get to know Linux. While all of us have our own preferences, know this, each of them IS Linux.

Know what YOU want to do, pick a distro, later change to a different distro if you want. Wash, rinse, repeat, if you want to.

You, as a user, cannot operate two OSes simultaneously. With a VM of some sort, two OSes can run at the same time, and multiple jobs can run on each at the same time. So no matter what you do, with two OSes you will effectively be dual booting. In my opinion, dual booting is pointless.
 
I agree with f33dm3bits about dual booting if you like. I would also go farther by saying if you want to use Linux, pick one, get to know Linux. While all of us have our own preferences, know this, each of them IS Linux.

Know what YOU want to do, pick a distro, later change to a different distro if you want. Wash, rinse, repeat, if you want to.

You, as a user, cannot operate two OSes simultaneously. With a VM of some sort, two OSes can run at the same time, and multiple jobs can run on each at the same time. So no matter what you do, with two OSes you will effectively be dual booting. In my opinion, dual booting is pointless.

So regarding VM, don't bother? Just install the Linux OS? I'm assuming it won't interfere with Linux if I leave Hyper-V active on Windows but just not using it for Linux?
 
You can install Linux along side Windows. With Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Mint, and various other distros, the installer will help guide you through the process to install along side.

Is there a reason why you want to keep Windows?
 
You can install Linux along side Windows. With Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Mint, and various other distros, the installer will help guide you through the process to install along side.

Is there a reason why you want to keep Windows?

Yes. I have a recording studio and until there are Linux versions of Steinberg Cubase Professional, Studio One Professional and MANY other software programs and VSTs I will be using Windows. I would love it if there were but I don't see that happening anytime in the near future.

I'm probably going to go with Mint, for now.
 
Or you can go hardcore/coldturkey and do what jglen490 said and just wipe your Windows installation. That's what I ended up doing shortly after run dual boot and still didn't know much about Linux. The advantage about this option is you will probably learn faster when running into things because you have no other choice than to figure it out because it is your only running OS, and you will get used to Linux faster that way. You can still then choose to run a virtual machine with windows on it if you need to run certain windows applications since I would think the applications you mention don't require hardware accelerated graphics. You could even setup a test virtual machine under your current windows install and just test if those applications run in a windows virtual machine. But if you goal is just to learn another OS and not get rid of Windows that the virtual setup should be more than enough for you.
 
Or you can go hardcore/coldturkey and do what jglen490 said and just wipe your Windows installation. That's what I ended up doing shortly after run dual boot and still didn't know much about Linux. The advantage about this option is you will probably learn faster when running into things because you have no other choice than to figure it out because it is your only running OS, and you will get used to Linux faster that way. You can still then choose to run a virtual machine with windows on it if you need to run certain windows applications since I would think the applications you mention don't require hardware accelerated graphics. You could even setup a test virtual machine under your current windows install and just test if those applications run in a windows virtual machine. But if you goal is just to learn another OS and not get rid of Windows that the virtual setup should be more than enough for you.

I want to learn Linux on my laptop but it will still need to be linked with my audiodesk that controls hardware in 3 different rooms. There is way too much involved and countless hours of setup and development to just throw everything away and hope Linux will do the job. That would be foolish. My hope is to get a new laptop for the studio's electronics room and then run only Linux on my current laptop.

20200605_175157.jpg
 
Yeah then install virtualbox and run your chosen GNU/Linux distro(s) in a virtual machine. I can imagine it would be quite frustrating with all the time you put into that finding out you can't figure out how to make it work under Linux. Looks like a really cool setup! What do you use all that for?
 
Yeah then install virtualbox and run your chosen GNU/Linux distro(s) in a virtual machine. I can imagine it would be quite frustrating with all the time you put into that finding out you can't figure out how to make it work under Linux. Looks like a really cool setup! What do you use all that for?

Thank you. I'm still in the process of completing the studio. Originally it was planned as an audio/video/photography studio but I don't have the room. It will be used most likely for audio recording of music, sound design and orchestral scoring of music to film. The most recent project I did... at the last minute, was a submission to a scoring competition for HBO's Westworld and Spitfire Audio. I'll link my entry below but I'm still in the early stages of development.

 
Interesting! Also I would do as @jglen490 said and just pick one distro and get to know that one. If you try everything at once it will overwhelm you. If you just pick one and use that to start to learn how Linux works then once you know the basics it will be easier to then try another distro. Otherwise you might start freaking out which you also already mentioned in the topic subject ;)
 
Interesting! Also I would do as @jglen490 said and just pick one distro and get to know that one. If you try everything at once it will overwhelm you. If you just pick one and use that to start to learn how Linux works then once you know the basics it will be easier to then try another distro. Otherwise you might start freaking out which you also already mentioned in the topic subject ;)

Yeah I've already decided to go with Linux Mint and learn on that.
 
Good choice. I have run that on my old Toshiba laptop and with the Mate DE it worked well. Most modern hardware will run Mint with the Cinnamon DE very nicely.
 

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