Dual Bootin' Linux Windows 10

Me | Feb | Me

[Bob434]

Ok good linuxian folks, Here's what I'd like to do IF possible-

Dual boot windows 10 and linux mint cinnamon BUT have windows 10 run again in linux under a virtual machine (yes I know it sounds redundant, but i have a reason for this setup if possible)

I'm not sure if I coudl install windows 10 twice on one machine or not, but let's for now just assume i could- (windows 10 is 'free' and you can download the iso for it and use it without activating it legally- the iso is direct from MS- and while I don't like windows 10 because of all the spyware crap- I plan on using it just for windows programs/games and not allowing it to access Internet)

The reason I'd like to run a second windows 10 in virtual machine is so that i can toggle back and forth between host os (linux) and guest (windows 10 in virtual machine)- there are myriad reasons for wanting to toggle between the two without having to do a reboot- downloading stuff, grabbing files, checking stuff etc-

The main os, Windows 10, which linux will install beside, will be barred from accessing Internet and it will just be there to run games, programs etc-

I work with photoshop- and I've tied running it under wine, play on linux, and in virtual machine- It works best in virtual machine, (although it's a little slow) so I would need the virtual machine windows 1o for the purpose of running windows apps- but it's too slow for things like games (and I would assume apps like Cad software- etc)

Would this kind of setup even be remotely possible? (First os windows 10- second os linux mint with guest virtual machine windows 10 again) and if so, how would you recommend allocating/partitioning the hard-drive? Should i partition a separate 'data' partition too?

[Bob434]

Thank You- I’ll check those out today- I only have one graphics card, and I’m not sure about onboard graphics or even how to enable it- never used onboard graphics before-

[Bob434]

If that works, with hte graphics passthrough- it will solve all my issues- and i won’t needf to dual boot- hopefully I can get it working :)

[Darth Reardon]

I know full well the difference between RAID 0 and 1, which is why I would NEVER come anywhere near RAID 0 (except as a component of RAID 1+0).

Differences between single disk system and RAID0/1 pairs:

RAID 0: Twice as likely to suffer catastrophic fault due to hardware failure. Higher throughput (though this is very unlikely to be noticable to a home user).

RAID 1: Almost certain not to suffer catastrophic fault due to hardware failure. Slightly worse write performance, slightly lower read latency (and better than RAID 0) and potentially higher read throughput (though again any performance differences very unlikely to be noticable to a home user).

[taxcontrol]

It is my experience that with modern SATA drives, the MTBF is such that the system will be out of date before the drives fail. Is it possible, yes. Is it technically twice as likely - mathematically yes. However the improved performance of 10 to 15 percent is enough to be noticeable when disk IO type of applications (some but not all games) is worth the advantage of Raid 0

Besides, you are backing that system up right? /sarc

[Justa]

Imo the best way to do what you want is to use 2 separate hard drives. The problem with doing it all on 1 hard drive is the boot loader. Invariably, the boot loader or partition table will get corrupted due to OS patching, upgrades (both W and L) or just plain mistakes and you’ll be out of your box.

Nesting OSs is risky and best left for a very stable platform to host. Your Windows 10 boot should be on it’s on drive which cannot see the file system of your Linux drive. Your Linux will be it’s own boot environment VM-ing into the separate Windows 10.

You should have a good Hyper threading CPU to run Linux and VM 10. And your system should be overclocked.

You never really want to use a boot loader. It’s quite dangerous (infections) and prone to corruption and failure.

Have you thought of a removable drive bay and installing (or migrating) the boot Windows 10 to that?

[taxcontrol]

Even if you don’t have an integrated graphics card, you can purchase a low end card and use that for your none gaming systems.

Most integrated graphics cards are activated via the BIOS

[Darth Reardon]

Well, I was backing it up, until yesterday when the drive with the backups/software failed (no RAID1 on that of course, I’m out of SATA ports). But even so, if I lost the boot drive, I don’t want to go through the hassle of having to reinstall an OS, do a full system recovery, reinstall GRUB, etc. And since I only have one system in the house with disks in it, if it goes down everything is down (including access to the OS software and any way to burn it on to something bootable — I should probably grab a thumb drive and make a rescue drive).

I get 100MB/s out of each RAID1 disk pair. Even when I’m recording three HD channels at once I only need a small percentage of that. I’m not a gamer, but I find it hard to believe anyone would need more than 100MB/s at home (though perhaps the latency benefit of RAID1 might help for gaming). Maybe, but it seems very unlikely. And if you really need performance, SSD is cheap enough (and surprisingly durable) these days to go RAID1 vs RAID0.

[Bob434]

windows won’t be updated- it will be off line mode only- I won’t even bother with updating it when installing it- I just basically need it for running windows software- and it will be denied online privileges (but who knows if MS hasn’t worked in some workaround to over-rule something like this?)

[[Have you thought of a removable drive bay and installing (or migrating) the boot Windows 10 to that?]]

You mean external? I had thought about it, but not sure it would give the performance an internal drive would? I have a USB 3.0 external- but would it be quick enough? (I think it only supports up to Sata 2- can’t find info if it supports Sata 3 or not-)

Or do you mean a, internal removeable drive bay I can switch out quickly? That sounds interesting- I’ve added one to my amazon cart- but will hold off for a bit-

[Justa]

Yes, I meant internal, in a 3.5” bay. I recently purchased a dual bay for my upcoming build. It takes 2x 2.5” drives (SSDs) and connects via SATA II/6 GBs ports to the board, just like other drives.

I’m considering going to a Linux boot and running Windows 10 in a VM with an F12 boot option into Windows 7. At this point I just need to purchase a 1TB SSD for it. The current Windows 7 is on a separate drive and runs Linux and XP in Oracle Virtual Box VMs. The XP is disconnected from the LAN whereas the Linux is connected. IMO Linux Mint is suitable as a permanent host OS for VMs so it’s getting its own drive for F12-boot usage.

[AFPhys]

Thanks for letting us know how you dual boot.