Dual Booting or VM (Best Privacy Option)

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Rayven2

Rayven2

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hello everyone, since we'll be required to upgrade to Windows 10 this year if we want our free copy, I've decided that I want to slowly migrate towards GNU/Linux based operating systems, mainly because of privacy issues, I know many don't care but I don't exactly want to have glass walls for my house so to speak.

I'll still be using Windows for gaming however, due to the better driver support and various games being only Windows based. So, since it can get a little messy with dual booting on the same HDD, what do you guys think about running my GNU/Linux distro in Hyper-V?

Or would it be pointless since Hyper-V is a Microsoft product?

PS: I want to start learning Ruby, would Ubuntu be fine for that?
 
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randomizer
If they're not the same drive you can work around the bootloader problem by installing the bootloader for Linux onto the second drive and using your BIOS boot order to load the right boot loader by selecting the appropriate disk to boot from first. If your BIOS allows you to select a boot disk via a menu each boot this is pretty convenient and saves you changing the default boot order. If not, you'll have to go in and change the default boot order each time you want to boot the other OS. Note that if you install the bootloader onto your Windows disk you'll end up with exactly the same problem as if you only had one disk. EDIT: This is only true if you install the bootloader to the MBR rather than a partition, but the latter requires...
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martinch

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Mar 21, 2014
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Dual-booting into Windows is likely the easiest option to achieve. However, virtualised Windows under Linux with hardware pass-through is likely the most "seamless" end-user experience whilst retaining performance, although it is much harder to set up.


Yup, it'll be fine. I'm sure all Linux distro's will have Ruby, PHP, Python, etc, in their PPA's.

 
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Rayven2

Rayven2

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Jul 31, 2014
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Thanks Martin, I've never worked with dual boot before, so somewhat of a notice question... Should I use another drive if possible for my Linux/GNU distro? I hear that it's a issue if you end up deleting it on the same HDD, where you get issues with the boot loader...

Also if that's the case, and I do use another SSD, what would be the best set up? I currently have 1 SSD and 1 HDD, I'd still like access to the HDD tho where the majority of my files are using either OS. (Windows is on the SSD, not the HDD). Is this possible?

Thanks Skittles, I appreciate it.
 
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skittle

skittle

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If you have both on the same drive you have two choices (1) use the windows bootloader and use software like EasyBCD to add linux to the boot list. (2) use Linux bootloader (GRUB) and add windows to the bootloader list. It does not matter which you choose however if you were to delete the Linux partition the bootloader information pointing to windows is also gone but you can restore the windows bootloader with a windows installation disk in recovery mode.

In any case from Linux you can access (read/write) windows partitions (NTFS) but windows cannot read or write to any linux partition. The best way to share files between OS is to use a NTFS, FAT or exFAT partition for this purpose. Be aware that Linux treats files as case sensitive but windows does not.
 
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Rayven2

Rayven2

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Thanks, I appreciate that. How 'bout if I don't use the same HDD with partitions, and have it on a entirely separate SSD and keep the OS away from each?

Hmm, I see. I'm going to have to do more research into it, it's good to know which format they prefer, I'm just hoping they can crisscross from one another with the same HDD.
 
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randomizer

randomizer

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If they're not the same drive you can work around the bootloader problem by installing the bootloader for Linux onto the second drive and using your BIOS boot order to load the right boot loader by selecting the appropriate disk to boot from first. If your BIOS allows you to select a boot disk via a menu each boot this is pretty convenient and saves you changing the default boot order. If not, you'll have to go in and change the default boot order each time you want to boot the other OS. Note that if you install the bootloader onto your Windows disk you'll end up with exactly the same problem as if you only had one disk. EDIT: This is only true if you install the bootloader to the MBR rather than a partition, but the latter requires more effort just to get working so I'd stick with the former.

I'd go with NTFS for a shared partition/disk. It will be the least painful solution. FAT16 and FAT32 have pretty annoying limitations and exFAT won't be supported by most distributions out of the box due to patent issues (although it's not hard to add support).
 
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