Not really sure how dualbooting or vms work at their core. I’m kind of over windows and want to swap, always liked the customizability aspect and have been using Linux more and more for self hosting purposes. Was wondering if I setup linux on my external ssd using a vm if I could change it from vm to a dualboot drive after I’m done setting it up. That way I could setitup and swap to it while keepign my original ssd with my windows install,. and not have to deal with dualbooting and going back and forth while setting up?
Can I make a vm of my current windows machine backup and run that in a linux setup?
no dual boot. just jump in, the water is fine.
Piracy seems harder, like whats the alternative to vfxmed for stuff like houdinifx
I can’t help with pirating software, your options are going to be heavily limited because most people running Linux would just prefer open source alternatives (like Blender), so it’s far less likely you will find cracked software specifically made for Linux (plus, there is a far smaller userbase). On some quick searching, I did find someone who had issues running Houdini in a VM (for multiple distros), but it worked fine when it was installed natively. I’m not seeing an entry in the WINE database for Houdini, so while you could always try running a Windows version through WINE, given the type of program it is, I highly doubt it would run without issue. I have no recommendations on how to get ahold of a Linux compatible version without a license.
Yeah, itd be fine as long as the simulation part works, I’ve heard blender gets 30% better performance and its what I use for 50% of my process and is part of why i want to switch. I had forgotten about wine.
I have to imagine there are more than a few substitutes on Linux, it’s not dealing with all the Windows DRM bullshit. And it’s where all the nerds hang out, and nerds like their piracy.
Arrr.
My recommendation would be to use clonezilla or a similar tool to make an image of your windows install and save that on the external ssd.
Then I would install Fedora KDE or whatever’s your poison on the internal drive.
If you wanna switch back to windows then you can always use clonezilla, or your tool of choice, to restore the image.
You could also use KVM/Qemu in your linux distro to restore the image into a windows vm.
virt-manager gives you a desktop gui while cockpit + cockpit-machines gives you a nice webui for handling virtual machines in linux.Clonezilla guide, for both linux and windows
https://www.linuxbabe.com/backup/how-to-use-clonezilla-liveBoth Cockpit and Virt-Manager are available in Fedora KDE’s Discover app if you prefer GUI installs:
Cockpit
Virt-Manager
this is a good solution
I’ll look into this, thank you!
Regarding HoudiniFX it seems they have Linux installs, and a free (with watermark) version for hobbyists - https://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini-apprentice/
Other than that I’d say Blender is the goto app, showing up as one of the most popular apps in the Discover app.
You can, but it’s a bit difficult.
My suggestion would be to use a LiveCD. Test it out and see if like whichever distro you choose. It completely replicates the feeling of *nix being on your hardware without any commitment.
If you go with NixOS or guix, both of which are declaratively configured, you can swap 99.9% seamlessly. I run the same NixOS config on 2 machine and a VM. Only thing I had to modify between them are some driver specific settings, but those are easy to isolate.
Here’s a post explaining how dual booting works.
When you turn on your computer, the bios or bios equavalent goes down its list of devices to try and boot from. It might have usb or cd first and ssd next, so if you put a cd or usb it’ll boot that automatically.
Devices that can be booted have special instructions in the first part of their storage that can be used to operate the hardware.
When the bios finds a device that can be booted it hands the hardware off to that device and breathes a sigh of relief, most of its work is over. That devices work is just beginning though.
If it finds a windows disk, that disks bootloader will load a minimal set of hardware drivers necessary to load the rest of windows and it builds itself up towards having a functional running windows operating system and presents a login screen to the user.
If it finds a Linux disk, the disks bootloader will do the same thing but instead of loading a set of drivers, kernel and configuration that let it start a windows system it will build towards having a running Linux system. Duh.
When you dual boot, the device the bios finds to boot from doesn’t do either of those things, it runs a bootloader that presents you the user with a choice between the two, then hands the task off to one or the other based on your choice.
Setting up dual booting means clearing off space and shrinking the windows partition so you can have a Linux partition, installing Linux to it and then installing a bootloader that gives you the option to use either os.
Great explanation, is using an external ssd instead of a partition still considered dualbooting?
Yes, but the bios will still need to go to the device with the bootloader on it for you to make the choice.
In the case that the external is unplugged or had a damaged wire or something, it won’t work.
Depending on your circumstances you may be better served by just installing Linux on the external device, not writing grub (the bootloader that lets you choose) to your internal drive and instead just booting from it like a usb.
I don’t generally recommend that to people, but if you absolutely will not use partitions no matter what then it’s a less complex way of accomplishing some tasks.
E: I want to be clear that you are setting yourself up for failure and unhappiness if you try to use a usb device chain booted off grub. You will make your life incredibly complex and make it hard to get help if you try to migrate that setup to your boot device.
It is infinitely easier to move your files to the external and dual boot from partitions on one device like a normal person.
Why do you want to use a vm or boot from your usb drive in the first place?
Maybe. If you can create the partition and set your hypervisor to use it as the virtual disk, then yes. But it might actually require a whole drive to do that. I can’t promise that it would easily convert from one to the other though. I would just go right for the dual-boot and use it as much as you can.
That would definitely be a technical challenge, but also it’s absolutely possible.
I used to do dual-boot Windows + Linux and I could run the Linux installation from a VM in Windows as well as the Windows installation from a VM in Linux.
When rebooting between metal and VM, Windows would always spend a few minutes “doing things” before continuing to boot, but it worked.
Linux would not even fret. It would just boot normally without any complaints.
I don’t remember exactly which distro I had at the time, but probably it was Linux Mint.
yup, I did the “linux running metal” and using the same partition with a VM in Windows and it worked fine. It was years ago, certainly Ubuntu or MX Linux. IIRC the linux partition cannot be on the same drive than the linux partition, it needs to be a different drive.
For me it was the same drive. I remember I had to generate a special file to convince VirtualBox to use the physical partition as if it was part of a different drive. I don’t remember the details. Quite hacky perhaps, but it worked.
You can go ntfs -> qcow and put your windows in a vm. It sucks more to go qcow -> ext3 and put your Linux vm on a metal.
Just dual boot. It’s easy and it works and you have a little computer in your pocket to look shit up on if you’re scared about fucking anything up.
Before you dual boot: turn off fast startup in windows, turn off uhh bitlocker(?) and make sure your bios will let you.
Make a backup first, because you don’t have one now and if anything happens you’ll lose everything. Nothing will happen, nothing ever happens, but knowing you’re not fucked makes you feel more confident.
E: people will tell you to use a different ssd or whatever for Linux. That’s stupid and bad advice. Don’t do it. Just clear off some space on your boot device and use it.
E2: fixed a typo.
It wouldn’t be seamless but if you used an “immutable distro” like Fedora Silverblue then 95% of your customization would be in your home directory. You could go from VM to bare metal and then copy over all of your home files.
There’s not really a simple way to make a VM setup permanent. You could try it out in a VM, and then use a backup tool to save your home directory and system configuration to transfer your settings to a “real” hard drive installation.
deleted by creator
