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I want to run Windows Vista 64bit (Eventually Windows 7) and Ubuntu on the same machine.
I want to play games and do graphic design in Windows. I want to write code, surf the internet, check email, and do everything else primarily on Linux.
Windows obviously can't be hosted in a VM since I want to do intense graphics stuff, but I was wondering if it would make more sense to go ahead and run a VM with Linux on it, which would require me to boot into Windows and and start the Linux VM every time. Or, If I should just dual boot, and boot into Linux about 80% of the time, and just restart when I need to use Windows.
I don't have much experience in this area and I'm leaning more towards dual-booting at the moment. Can you guys shed some light on the subject? Is it better to dual-boot or just run a Linux VM?
+1 that's a good point, what I would gain in performance from dual-booting would most likely be overshadowed by context-switching between Windows and Linux. – Robert Greiner – 2009-09-11T17:37:59.993
4I totally disagree - if you're a gamer, having a stripped down windows install is definately the way to go. – Phoshi – 2009-09-11T17:59:55.580
1Wouldn't running Linux in VM as opposed to naively take away one of the main benefits of Linux? You'd still have the system resources of Vista (even if stripped) pulling on the machine then, running the linux vm on top. I guess it depends on what your main concern is when using Linux. Also I don't know the answer to this but has anybody tried using WINE to run Windows games in Linux? I wouldn't imagine it would work but I could be wrong. – Daddy Su – 2009-09-11T19:51:37.993
Wine is extremely buggy. I dual boot Debian and Vista, but I don't use Debian that much. I tried to play Starcraft on Wine and battle.net was a mess. There is a program (but it's not free) that works perfect. I can't think of the name of it. I think it's called Cedega. – xxl3ww – 2009-09-11T20:06:46.950