Re: dual boot or windows vm?
On Mon, 26 May 2025 14:23:04 -0400
Lee <ler762@gmail.com> wrote:
> For those of you that still use Windows, do you have a dual boot
> system where you select linux or windows at boot time or do you boot
> into linux and run windows as a vm?
>
> My wife is trying to decide if she wants to keep windows on her laptop
> or no. Obviously, it's easier not to decide & keep her options open..
> but I don't know if dual boot or running windows in a vm would be
> better, or what the tradeoffs would be.
>
> Anyone care to say which is the better option, tradeoffs, pitfalls,
> etc?
>
>
It depends on why you want it. I needed Windows on a laptop to run a
few proprietary applications relating to hardware, for programming PIC
microcontrollers and XBee radio boards, also to run my USB
oscilloscope. Both the scope driver and PIC IDE were available for
Linux but were very poor and buggy.
For direct hardware access, I wouldn't even try a VM, as proprietary
auxiliary software for hardware driving is often not that well written
and may do naughty things with the PC hardware, bypassing the proper
Windows API.
For applications purely within Windows, perhaps a version which can't
be safely connected directly to the Net, possibly a VM would be more
useful.
--
Joe
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