You need a Linux Box!

[G+_Rud Dog]

You need a Linux Box!

This is what I keep hearing from time to time when something "linux only" pops up. But I don't want another PHYSICAL box, keyboard and mouse on my desktop.

Is there full blown Linux OS which can reside on my Windows 8 machine and use my existing hardware.

 

Another requirement, the ability to have windows and Linux open at the same time, allowing "ALT-TAB" between Windows and Linux.

 

Format drives as ext4, copy files back and forth....guess there is more than meets the eye. 

BTW don't have any experience using VM.

[G+_Eddie Foy]

VirtualBox is free and works.  But I use it on a linux box to get Windows :P  You can usually just dl an image and run.

On my main machine, a Mac, I use Parallels for my VMs. (typically Windows)

My linux boxes are a couple laptops (not a bad idea if you have one around; you can VNC or ssh  into it) and about a dozen Pis.

 

Even a Pi is a Linux box.  Most of what 'you gotta have a linux box'  crap for, a Pi is fine, just ssh into it and learn.  commandline is the best way to learn linux since everything boils down to it.  (can even VNC into it, if you have a LOT of free time.  Its dog slow)

 

learn bash scripting, sed, awk, grep, (and know I'm missing a bunch other 'first stops'

 

And the whole Vi (vim) vs emacs?  Screw both those archaic, convoluted piles of poo designed for masochists and just just nano.

 

And of course there is the old standby Cygwin.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

I think Eddie Foy hit all the major points, nice job!

 

Virtualbox makes doing this easy, and all you need to do is go download it.

[G+_Jeff Gros]

I also use virtualbox (the free part is pretty attractive). Its useful, but like everything else, there is a bit of a learning curve.

 

A few points:

 

1. Stick with the mainstream distros if you are going to use virtualbox. If you try to use something very old or off the main path, you will run into a lot of problems (driver issues with graphics and sound, etc). I ran into this when making a windows 95 VM a few years back.

 

2. If you are inexperienced, I would recommend spending 5 minutes searching on youtube for "install linux/windows/etc in virtualbox" so you can find out about setting up the VM options, installing extra goodies, etc.

 

3. You will probably need to install "guest additions": https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

 

4. For advanced features, such as USB 2.0 and above, you will need to install the "extensions pack". It's also on the downloads page.

 

5. Even with all of the extensions installed, your USB might still be slow depending on your usage. I use VMs for development at work. If you need to do anything "high speed", it will be painful.

 

Read this for a full comparison between VirtualBox and other VMs: http://www.tekrevue.com/2015-vm-benchmarks-parallels-11-vs-fusion-8/

 

6. Be aware that VMWare has recently done massive layoffs.  So if you go the paid route, be aware that many have concerns over the future of VMWare.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Thanks for the help was able install VirtualBox and format USB stick type ext4. The first attempt failed as the 1GB USB stick was not recognized by the system after installing a 2GB stick all was fun in linux land.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Can you on-the-fly expand the disk space you allocated when setting ubuntu on virtualbox?

[G+_Eddie Foy]

Hmm.  Not that up on VB.  But when setting up a VM, in general, there should be an option for expanding/sparse VM/image.

 

Welcome to the entry part of VMs.  But its OK, its easy to trash and rebuild.  Not to be a d-bag, but build, screw up crash, rebuild.  If you accept that as your learning cliff, you will do OK.

 

Once you get a happy image, make a 'virgin' copy.  Thats the major perk to VMs, just copy a file and back where you were.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Rud Dog I think that's the default when you create a virtual machine in VirtualBox.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Travis Hershberger Sorry but the default as in 'no' you can not expand on the fly or yes? Guess my wife is right 'everything has to be spelled out for me' Thanks again Travis.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Rud Dog Ah, I thought you were asking a different question.  Yes, the storage you assign to the virtual machine will expand on the fly.

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

Also, many file systems will allow you to expand the disk without losing the data. If you need more room than your thin provisioned drive can max out at, you can expand the size of the disk, mount the gparted iso and use it to expand the partition.  You can do it without the iso but generally shouldn't do it on the root partition though some FS say you can.

[G+_Rud Dog]

Still searching within VB for how to expand on the fly. If someone knows or finds the how to please share.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

You just add another hard drive.  Then in the virtual machine add the new hard drive to the lvm manager 'pvcreate /dev/newdevice', add the new pv to the current volume 'vgextend vgname /dev/newdevice', extend the logical volume 'lvextend lvname -L 100%FREE', and finally extend the file system 'resize2fs /dev/vgname/lvname'

 

Not exactly simple I know, but that was all from memory.

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

Travis Hershberger That does require you set up your drives using LVM which is good to know before you install your distro. From the last episode of TNSS looks like this is simply a checkbox in Ubuntu LTS setup. I haven't used LVM other than for doing RAID 5 on 300 GB of 4 320 GB drives and a 300 GB drive and then RAID 10 (or 01 I don't remember) on the remaining 20 GB for the first 4 drives. Of course this was all physical disks, not VMs, but it looks like LVM has a great use case for doing VMs.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Aaron Bishop LVM, or something that enables the same functionality (brtfs), is almost a requirement in my book.  While it's really not that difficult to learn, I've just gotten to the point where I can work with it without looking at some sort of reference/guide.  The need to change things doesn't come up all that often.  Great stuff to use a VM to learn about tho (just be sure to have a backup/snapshot you can revert to.)

[G+_Rud Dog]

After getting one USB stick on show up on my virtualbox running ubuntu all others fail. Want to format ext4 USB sticks on ubuntu but when i plug them in and run the disk util it fails to see the stick any ideas why?