A question about Virtuality

[John Pilkington]

I have just acquired an i3 box with 2*500 GB disks, 4 GB ram and 
Windows10, essentially 'because it was there' and because my grandson's 
homework typically assumes an M$ environment.  Fact.

In the past I would have installed Fedora as a double-boot, but this 
list has much of talk of virtual boxes.  I'd like a few pointers on 
their practicality on this box and where to start.

TIA,

John P

[George N. White III]

On 21 February 2018 at 11:04, John Pilkington <J.Pilk(a)tesco.net&gt; wrote:

>  I have just acquired an i3 box with 2*500 GB disks, 4 GB ram and
>  Windows10, essentially 'because it was there' and because my grandson's
>  homework typically assumes an M$ environment.  Fact.
>
>  In the past I would have installed Fedora as a double-boot, but this list
>  has much of talk of virtual boxes.  I'd like a few pointers on their
>  practicality on this box and where to start.
>  
Some Windows 10 versions have Windows Subsystem for Linux.   Once you
enable this (if available on your version) you can choose from several
linux distros.  You get a command-line environment (for GUI app's you use a
Windows X11 server).  There is limited networking and disk IO is slower
than bare metal.  If you are running small batch processing jobs it may be
faster than rebooting.  The linux system lives in a special directory that
contains a standard linux layout (/usr/bin, /home, etc) so you WSL home  is
not the Windows %USERPROFILE% directory and therehave been warnings that
you can encounter problems trying to manipulate the Windows filesystem from
WSL.  There are also some limitations on things like stack size that only
documented via blog posts.

In my past I have run workshops using linux software using VM's installed
on the teaching lab's Windows boxes.   Once we got past the installation,
these VM's were quite practical for small projects, but not at all suited
to "real" tasks with large data sets.  I have tested a bunch of the same
linux programs under WSL to see if it would be possible to avoid installing
the VM and linux.  Most ran fine, some need tricks to increase stack size,
and some won't run.  Most standard distro packages that don't do network
I/O install and run well.

In my experience, 4G B ram was just enough, using a basic linux window
system on a Ubuntu 12.04.    I've noticed that recent distros have
increased the minimum RAM requirement, so you have problems booting into a
linux GUI.

-- 
George N. White III

[Dario Lesca]

Il giorno mer, 21/02/2018 alle 11.52 -0400, George N. White III ha
scritto:
>  Some Windows 10 versions have Windows Subsystem for Linux.  
This is an horrible solution.
I can not understand how this can be suggested in this ML

How do you can trust what does ( spy?) windows under Linux?
How can you write a passphrase in Linux and be sure that Windows does
not capture it?
You can not.

If you want use Linux on a Computer you must be remove Window from it,
or reduce Windows partition and install Linux in dual boot, in addition
to the solutions proposed by poc

Another way to use Linux on a PC without remove Windows is install
Linux on a USB-3 key and boot on this PC form it.

-- 
Dario Lesca
(inviato dal mio Linux Fedora 27 Workstation)

[George N. White III]

On 22 February 2018 at 07:02, Dario Lesca <d.lesca(a)solinos.it&gt; wrote:

>  Il giorno mer, 21/02/2018 alle 11.52 -0400, George N. White III ha
>  scritto:
>  > Some Windows 10 versions have Windows Subsystem for Linux.
>
>  This is an horrible solution.
>  I can not understand how this can be suggested in this ML
>  
The majority of student labs have Windows, so if your students need
software that is only available on linux, your choices are VM's or WSL.
Typical configurations, e.g., 4G RAM impose severe limits on VM's.
WSL has other limitations.


>  How do you can trust what does ( spy?) windows under Linux?
>  How can you write a passphrase in Linux and be sure that Windows does
>  not capture it?
>  You can not.
>  
For business IT, nobody gets fired when Windows screws up.  Corporate IT
needs to pass blame up to a legal entity (e.g., Microsoft, Apple, or a paid
linux
distro) with contractual obligations.

WSL is not for people who have very high security requirements, nor are
most
linux distros.


>  If you want use Linux on a Computer you must be remove Window from
> it,
>  or reduce Windows partition and install Linux in dual boot, in addition
>  to the solutions proposed by poc
>  
>  Another way to use Linux on a PC without remove Windows is install
>  Linux on a USB-3 key and boot on this PC form it.
>  
Most student labs will not permit booting anything but the approved
Windows configuration.  For people whose work depends on access to
business applications and the corporate Windows network,
dual boot cuts the user off from important business tools.

Students who are introduced to linux in courses may go on to work
with linux on cloud services without ever booting linux on a PC or
using a linux GUI.   In my workplace, IT is constantly asking us to
justify our use of linux, and are amazed to learn that there
are "mission critical" applications that don't run on Windows.

Currently, we live with an unhealthy situation where the majority
of computer users think the world runs on Windows with a few
Macs for the 1%.  They have no idea that many of the services
they use are running on linux, or that there are ways to work
more effectively using command-line tools and batch processes
than some GUI.   People whose only experience with computers
has been with Windows Desktops are running large and small
enterprises and government departments and agencies.  Like
the parable of the blind men and the elephant, you can't
expect people with such narrow views of computing to make
good decisions.  It is worth noting that some of the
most successful companies today are run by people who do have
a more balanced experience.  People who understand this
will welcome any opportunity to expose Windows users to
some of the things they are missing.


-- 
George N. White III

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Wed, 2018-02-21 at 15:04 +0000, John Pilkington wrote:
>  I have just acquired an i3 box with 2*500 GB disks, 4 GB ram and 
>  Windows10, essentially 'because it was there' and because my grandson's 
>  homework typically assumes an M$ environment.  Fact.
>  
>  In the past I would have installed Fedora as a double-boot, but this 
>  list has much of talk of virtual boxes.  I'd like a few pointers on 
>  their practicality on this box and where to start. 
I assume you mean a Windows guest under a Fedora host, rather than the
other way round. Probably the easiest way to try it is with VirtualBox
as it has a fairly clear GUI install process. Set up a basic Win10
system with 20GB of disk and 2GB of RAM and test it. You'll need a
Windows installer image of course (DVD or ISO file). However with 4GB
of host memory it's going to be less than ideal. Adding another 4GB
stick (and reconfiguring the VM to use 4GB, with whatever additional
disk space you need) would probably make a noticeable difference.

poc

[John Pilkington]

On 21/02/18 16:54, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>  On Wed, 2018-02-21 at 15:04 +0000, John Pilkington wrote:
> > I have just acquired an i3 box with 2*500 GB disks, 4 GB ram and
> > Windows10, essentially 'because it was there' and because my grandson's
> > homework typically assumes an M$ environment.  Fact.
> >
> > In the past I would have installed Fedora as a double-boot, but this
> > list has much of talk of virtual boxes.  I'd like a few pointers on
> > their practicality on this box and where to start.
>  
>  I assume you mean a Windows guest under a Fedora host, rather than the
>  other way round. Probably the easiest way to try it is with VirtualBox
>  as it has a fairly clear GUI install process. Set up a basic Win10
>  system with 20GB of disk and 2GB of RAM and test it. You'll need a
>  Windows installer image of course (DVD or ISO file). However with 4GB
>  of host memory it's going to be less than ideal. Adding another 4GB
>  stick (and reconfiguring the VM to use 4GB, with whatever additional
>  disk space you need) would probably make a noticeable difference.
>  
>  poc 
Thank you both for your replies.  Yes, I had expected that I would use 
mainly the Fedora option but would have Win10 available so that I could 
see it in action; news of WSL came as something of a surprise.  I'm not 
in any great hurry although I guess I ought to fire it up to see that it 
actually works.  I had suspected that more ram would be a good idea, and 
there are slots unpopulated.

John