I run Windows as a VM inside Linux. This is only for some gps software i use. The good thing with this video is that it can also be used to install linux, virtualbox and a VM.
I have a good feeling that a new video will come soon where Christopher will show how to create a windows virtual machine inside a linux host, which will make the situation more stable than a linux machine on a windows host ;-) Spoiler alert: it will be done with the linux version of VirtualBOX
I started running Linux in a Virtual Box VM. I now run Linux directly and keep a Windows VM for those rare occasions I just need to use Windows. I also wanted to say I appreciate the VMWare segment. Well stated observations without a lot of the negativity some feel towards VMWare. Some of the Windows 11 details that have Win10 user's looking for alternatives are also requirements for VMware so it is valuable for people to understand the requirements.
One thing to note is that if you want to do any kind of gaming in a VM you need VMWare because Virtualbox has a severe restriction on VRAM for the guest. Even with VMWare you can only run games with moderate resource requirements, no AAA games.
Videos such as this are some of the most important one can have when contemplating a switch to linux. Just getting started is half the battle. Once someone embarks on the linux journey, this is an excellent way to start. I still suggest installation on a separate PC, but for just trying it out, it's a great and safe way to go. As others have said, having a linux box running windows virtually is more stable and the next logical progression until one can abandon windows and it's forced-pc-upgrade mentality. Thank you Chris.
@@FlyboyHelosim No, Hyper V is Microsoft’s hypervisor software for Windows. It allows you to create VMs of any OS (like Virtual Box) but it is a built in Windows feature. Hyper V does not allow for the creation of temporary VMs, you have to manually delete them and their virtual disks.
Well done Chris, another excellent video 👍. I've used VirtualBox many times on Linux to run other Linux distros and Windows but I'm off now to try out some of the settings you mentioned in the video. Thanks for all your excellent content!
It has been 7 years I haven’t used Windows at all. Last week I helped my father with his desktop and I had to use Win10. I felt lost 🤣. Thank God I don’t have any software to deal that forces me to use it on Windows.
Another feature of WSL is the ability to run Linux GUI apps on top of your existing Windows desktop and you can access files and programs from the Windows host inside a WSL machine.
Too many years ago to remember, I got my first taste of Ubuntu running it in a VMware virtual machine as it would run Folding@Home more efficiently & quickly than Windows 7. A lot more use of the command prompt then but the forums were helpful in showing what to do. I will try to use Virtual Box to explore Linux before the end of the year. I wasn't aware that Python was needed.
Great video, as usual, Chris! One other change I make to VBox settings is in Network. I change the Attached to: to use Bridged Network to get connected to the network directly, as I have weird issues with firewalls on the host interacting with the VMs. I also use Windows Hyper-V which has it's own issues and limitations, but, like VBox, runs a full VM. Another host you might want to look at is XCP-NG, a competitor to Proxmox, but meets more of my needs...
Actually, I am doing it the other way around 😅 running Linux and Windows 8.1 Pro inside Virtual Box for occasional offline use. Thank you Christopher, always learning something new from your videos (while watching the video installed the extension pack).
Whenever installing software, I always prefer using a package manager, such as Chocolatey or WinGet. That way, maintenance (i.e., updates) are simplified (with something like choco upgrade all -y). Examples in this case include the C++ runtime and Python. If you don't use such a package manager, you have to visit each site periodically to check for updates, whereas the package manager way is more automated.
Many years ago I used VMware Workstation and then VirtualBox. When Microsoft released WSL I switched and never looked back. Actually I did not have any choice because WSL does not play nice with the other virtual machine managers. But the integration between the Windows and Linux world is so slick that you really do get the best of both worlds. The one area that still needs improvement is for GUI apps. WSLg does provide support for graphical apps on Linux, but I sometimes want access to a full Linux desktop. I managed to hack something together which works well over RDP but I wish it was a fully supported out of the box option in WSL.
The only reason you had to install Python was because you were installing Python support in VirtualBox. If you have no need for that, which most people won't, you can disable it during the installation procedure and avoid installing Python. PHP is better than Python for scripting anyway.
Older versions of VirtualBox, and likely other hypervisors too, can run virtual machines in software so don't require CPUs that support hardware-based virtualization. This is useful when using older computers to test and run VMs. Another note is that newer versions of VirtualBox that do support hardware-based virtualization, but still older than the version shown in this video, also don't have all those third-party dependency requirements (MS C++ and Python).
Virtualbox software emulation is a joke. Better use 'Qemu TCG' or 'bochs'. Also if your computer is that old to not have virtualization, it is most likely not suitable for virtualization and will be too slow. Exceptions may be modern Celeron or Ryzen 3 based computer.
@@replikvltyoutube3727 First of all, VirtualBox is not an emulator. And secondly, it all depends what OS you want to virtualize and what you want to do in that OS. I cut my teeth on a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and was fine for running current operating systems of its time, as well as Windows 95/98 and DOS, etc. in light-to-medium tasks.
@@xrafter They used to be available for download on the VirtualBox website. I just quickly checked and see they've redesigned the site and I don't think the older versions are available there anymore. Maybe they can be found on the Internet Archive. I forget which exact versions are software-based, but VirtualBox went to being exclusively hardware-based as of December 2019 (if that's what you're looking for).
My laptop, a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (i5-4200U) had HW virtualization disabled with no option in the BIOS to enable it. Thankfully, others figured out how to enable it by using using a hex editor on the BIOS. It's a scary thing editing the BIOS when you're blindly following directions. It thankfully worked.
It is a good way to explore Linux while you still use Windows. Two buts. Many users think that setting up a VM is complicated, mostly it is not but there is this one big annoying problem with VM's, often it is difficult to get the VM to have the correct resolution (both Linux and Windows) and it is difficult to figure out how to copypaste between a VM and the host, but not difficult to set it up once you know how to it. The 2nd but: you will get a much better performance in most ways by installing that Linux-distro on a USB-stick but of course there also is value in being able to check out Linux in a VM while you still can use your host for regular tasks. The main point here is that you can only judge the performance by also trying out Linux via a USB-stick as the host, the VM will always feel more sluggish (there is very limited GPU-support for that) and have some other downsides (typically a lower quality of the sound) which could be even worse if the user lacks sufficient CPU-cores or set the VM to only use 1 CPU-core and a very low amount of RAM (2 GB or 4 GB) which sadly still is the default in both Virtualbox and virt-manager.
I don't have anything pertinent to say about the video, just that I look forward to Sunday when I get to see it. Reminds me of the style of the 1980's computer shows which, whilst before my time, I find interesting to see how terms have changed. We don't call them micro computers anymore, and Apple, Google & Microsoft would like to do away with the personal part of computing. Actually, there is something pertinent; Heard of PCem? It lets you create virtual machines with a variety of different configurations, and emulates anything up to a pentium 2 with a voodoo graphics card. I found it fun for making a windows 98 machine to play with microsoft encarta. I found mindmaze a fun game when I was in school and missed it.
WSL is excellent for developers. The first time I got a window with Emacs open in Windows from Wayland running on Debian in WSL, it really blew me away. For things that used to be such a faff, or rely on flaky Windows builds of GNU libraries, it's a game changer. And Microsoft have been improving the experience and capabilities of WSL all the time. Though, I'd agree, for distro evaluation, a full virtual machine experience is going to be far more representative.
An interesting video as always. I know to many Windows isn't perfect or even hated but I'm running Windows 11 24H2. The programmes I'm running dictate I use Windows and I can live with that.
I enjoyed the video ‘Running Linux in Windows’ & it’s given me some ideas I’d like to try out! Personally I’d rather be running things the other way around with Windows as a VM in Linux. I’ve used VirtualBox for several years but never had to do the extra steps you took to get things running, I’ve also dabbled with Gnome Boxes but had mixed results, I don’t think my PC had the resources needed. There is of course a type 1 hypervisor built into the Linux kernel, using KVM & libvirt this can run at near bare metal speeds something I’d like to try out in the future.
There are definitely a few things about this video needs to be added/called out. 1. When talking about hypervisors it's worth noting on the differences between a hypervisor and an emulator, like DosBox and PCEm. For example from the perspective of architecture - you cannot run ARM in a hypervisor - because the code is supposed to literally run off the physical CPU. 2. Could be a deeper touch on C++ redist. I think for the most of people it is not a default knowledge that the older ones are bundled in one package, while the others are all separate. 3. I am not sure why Python bindings are selected by default in your installation - but that is a deselectable component. You do not need python to run Virtual Box. You ONLY need it if you plan coding in Python using VirtualBox. So in your video you are installing two unnecessary components. 4. Since you talked about WSL - why not mentioning Hyper-V? It has GUI, both in management interface and in the VM guest output. WSL is more for developers, HyperV is more for the users. 5. Speaking of Hyper-V core which WSL2 uses anyway - I think you missed a CRITICAL point. Once you install HyperV core, your "host" machine _actually_ becomes a VM, too. The true host is now the Hypervisor. What it means in practice is that the performance in the "host" will suffer as well. Your mileage may vary but add a bitlocker, a bad AV, some other security stuff - and say hellp to 10-20% of performance lost ONLY from installing WSL/HyperV. This is a fundamental difference between Hyper-V and the rest - and this is why MS had a "HyperV Core Server" Windows Server configuration mode which takes very little space to install.
great video and I'm glad you touched the WSL way! I've been using WSL on Windows 10 for a couple of years, it's working pretty great (nitpick - try pinging another machine on your network from WSL - it won't let you without sudo...) . as much as i know, you can't install GUI for WSL on Windows 10 - i've tried at some point, and nothing works. apparently, they made this a "Windows 11 only feature" . another thing, i believe i originally installed Debian WSL just by going to the MS Store and searching for Debian and clicking install. but it could be that there were terminal commands involved afterwards
Afternoon Chris. As a thought have you tried running Clear Linux yet? Not Clear OS even though they are both Linux based. I’ve put it on my 7th Gen i5 potato laptop, loaded up Steam and the games that do run (Crysis 2, Far Cry, Aerofly, Civ 5) all run a good deal faster due to the Intel optimisation. Be interesting to try it in a VM to see if there’s a notable difference. Clear’s developers say it’s for the Server space but it does remarkably well as a desktop OS. I’m running Debian 12 (vanilla desktop) with Gnome 3 as a daily driver but only because I haven’t figured out how to mount my micro-servers during boot. Clear Linux is more partitioned and there are only so many hours in the day. And I’ve not got that many left even if I max out, there’s a lot more behind me that ahead.
SteamOS isn't really suited for systems outside of steam deck, if you like the desktop mode interface i recommend any distro which ships KDE by default e.g fedora KDE, kubuntu Steam sets up proton and everything automatically, so it is basically the same as SteamOS once steam is installed
Cool video. I have my machine dual booting Arch and Windows 10. I setup virtualbox to use a physical disk and it can run my actual run my actual Arch Linux drive but it is tedious to setup. You have to set the drive to offline and enable it using the dispart command line. It does allow me to run pacman to update arch without having to reboot into Arch though. It comes in handy.
Excellent video. I mostly use WSL in Windows 11, but I had an issue where I was attempting to run ansible, which doesn't run Windows but does run in linux. The ansible script needed to access a service on a specific port in Windows, but that wasn't working. However, I used virtual box and was able to configure the port and ansible when running in virtual box could talk to my service just fine.
I see from the comments that you can do the opposite, that is run Windows inside Linux as a virtual machine. My ask is, is there a way to bundle up your current, existing Windows system in some way that would allow you to get it into a virtual machine? Seems you always start with a fresh install which is less desirable than somehow virtualizing an existing operating system. Also can you export a virtualized operating system on one physical PC and import it into a vm of another physical PC?
Extended topic, cloning an installation, making it "read-only" so any changes are discarded when shutdown, more secure ? or delete the clone each time and create a new clone for a new session, or if unattended install is available, delete the previous install, create a new one each time.
Nice video. It's a shame the Virtual Box installer just gives an error rather than pull down the other needed components or link straight through to them.
Greetings. Trying hands on Linux is going to be a need for many if they wanna continue using their systems securely, considering how MS is all set to drop support next year.
windows built-in hypervisor Hyper-V is available on Windows Pro and above. No need to install 3rd party stuff and mess around with Python. It works great with Linux distros of just about any flavor. This should be mentioned in your video. Did you skip it for a reason?
Sir, you don't need to have python to install virtuablox to install Linux. It can be disabled by selecting python API and choosing do not install. It is used for automation through python code I believe, and isn't needed for casual user.
I see so many post from new Linux users who mess up their machines when dual-booting, I've gotten to the point I just recommend they buy a cheap secondary computer to use as a Linux machine.
Unfortunately, I still have some programs that only run in windows. Any development that I do is in Linux, but some proprietary software isn't compatible. Yet...
Back in 2007 when I started to use Linux when they forgot to send Vista with my prebuilt PC. Just downloaded opensuse and absolutely loved it however package dependency errors were very common and sometimes huge pain, now days I am using mint as a daily driver. Linux is very easy now days if you use it for daily tasks like browsing the web...etc. Apparently If you want to run GTA V you are out of luck now.
One VM you didn't use was QEMU. However, I can understand why you wouldn't recommend/show it: It is painfully slow because it emulates the CPU rather than taking advantage of hardware acceleration that might be available. And the command lines for launching a VM via QEMU are esoteric, long, and painful to type in every single time. VirtualBox is great for desktop OS emulation, but it is limited in what processors and systems it can emulate. For instance, Android OS with Google Play can be emulated with QEMU. Android Studio makes the QEMU experience less painful but it still runs really sluggishly.
QEMU is an emulator, VirtualBox is a hypervisor. Although similar in some end goals, they do things fundamentally differently and are for different purposes.
VMWare has better performance but I do care about open source. You didn't mention qemu/QtEmu for Windows although on Windows it has bad performance. VirtualBox has many CVE security issues which aren't getting fixed fast enough. More Linux! :-)
LOL, i just could need a similar video, just in reverse since i recently upgraded my lubuntu22.04. system up to lubuntu24.04. and now virtuabox doesn't work anymore, where i had installed win7 and win10 as virtual machines :-( Thnx anyway and best regards, hope i will find out how to fix it soonly by myself :-)
Yorkie chocolate bar: does it still say "Not for girls" on the side? Anyway, a great video. Although I skipped the whole wondoze experience by transiting from Unix, through Zenix(s) to Linux. 🇨🇦
Do you know a way to turn an old PC into essentially a USB drive so you can access any and all of the drives connected to it? I ask because 10gbps+ ethernet is expensive where as 10gbps+ USB is now standard on motherboards I know thunderbolt 3/4 and USB4 have or usually have the ability to directly plug PC to PC with the right cable But how about with USB 3 any versions be it 20gbps down to 5gbps
@@stevenlace7902 at 1gbps... or spend £70 per machine to add 10gbps nope I want to make sure there is no way to do it through USB first Sure 125MB/s might be fast enough for some people but i have a 1GB/s drive i can move files faster doing it manually rather than connected together via ethernet...
I run Windows inside Linux. Why would you want to do it the other way around? VirtualBox runs under Linux. Oracle killed Windows, intentionally of course, they keep killing it but it won't die
Recently I have played my physical copy of Half Life using Lutris. No problems at all. Old games work just fine. Just DOS games need some tweak to work on DOSbox.
Uh, I had no idea that Broadcom now owned VMware and no longer Dell. What a rigmarole to download it now. I think I'd be inclined to avoid that like the plague.
Broadcom has a habit of buying up companies, ramping up the prices, maximizing their short-term returns and then letting the product die. By that point, Broadcom has already moved on to their next victim.
And if you are fed up with Microsofts crap and want total and maximum performance within Linux you go the other way around! DO NOT DUAL BOOT, Install Linux on bare metal and "maybe" use Windows on Linux within a VM, if you want or need to go "retro"
Why would want to drive Linux in a VM on Windows? Better do it the other way around. Or even better get yourself a "live" distro on a thumb drive. This makes no sense.
Ah, I love how Microsoft call it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" and not the more logical "Linux Subsystem for Windows" - because you're installing Linux on Windows, so it should be "Linux for Windows", right? But, no, that would put the name "Linux" first, in front of Windows, and the marketing department can't abide that. So, weirdly, it's backwards and it's "Windows Subsystem for Linux", even though, no, that does not mean installing a Windows Subsystem on Linux, as you might imagine from the name. It's amazing, really, how the potential of making billions of dollars can turn grown men, undertaking serious business, to become so stupidly childish. Who cares what name comes first, as long as it makes sense? But, no, "Windows" must be first and more prominent, even if that makes the name deeply illogical and backwards. Ah, well, at least they've given up on that insistence of putting "Microsoft (R)" in front of everything everywhere, just in case you might go 5 seconds without being reminded of their "brand identity". Why do we let these idiots run the world, eh?
@@kinnikuzero The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to find ways NOT step on its own toes caused by a culture of geeks and hacks, so called open-source software with a license of mish mash hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionality supporting the windows O/S privacy platform nightmare of hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage… Its windows or nothing for the majority… In computing terms, the people behind all aspects of the modern O/S is fragmented, geek inspired, continual and constant tinkering of platforms to do anything and everything, jack of all trades master of none vibe, catering to the private for profit sector with Linux has the back stage support act. "Oh don't you know Linux is free...." No its not, its a development platform for the private sector, Linux is the private sectors toolbox. Has plenty of tools developing it. hahahaha
@@kinnikuzero The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to try and NOT step on its own toes caused by a geek culture of hacks, so called open-source software and license mish mash of hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionally supporting the windows O/S privacy nightmare hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage…
The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to find ways NOT step on its own toes caused by a culture of geeks and hacks, so called open-source software with a license of mish mash hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionality supporting the windows O/S privacy platform nightmare of hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage… Its windows or nothing for the majority… In computing terms, the people behind all aspects of the modern O/S is fragmented, geek inspired, continual and constant tinkering of platforms to do anything and everything, jack of all trades master of none vibe, catering to the private for profit sector with Linux as the back stage support act. "Oh don't you know Linux is free...." No its not, its a development platform for the private sector, Linux is the private sectors toolbox. Has plenty of tools developing it. hahahaha
@@sharonwolff1 That's the point... There is no alternatives.. The idea Linux is an alternative is just simply PR guff... Linux is a tool for developers, that's pretty much it.
I run Windows as a VM inside Linux. This is only for some gps software i use. The good thing with this video is that it can also be used to install linux, virtualbox and a VM.
I have a good feeling that a new video will come soon where Christopher will show how to create a windows virtual machine inside a linux host, which will make the situation more stable than a linux machine on a windows host ;-) Spoiler alert: it will be done with the linux version of VirtualBOX
For me, this is the way to go. I personally use Xen, although there are many options (VirtualBox, VMWare Workstation, Proxmox, oVirt, and so on)
This was my gateway drug into the Linux daily driver!
"Wild excitement" The first time I have ever heard a Linux install described that way.
In fairness, no-one's ever said that about installing Windows either.
I started running Linux in a Virtual Box VM. I now run Linux directly and keep a Windows VM for those rare occasions I just need to use Windows. I also wanted to say I appreciate the VMWare segment. Well stated observations without a lot of the negativity some feel towards VMWare. Some of the Windows 11 details that have Win10 user's looking for alternatives are also requirements for VMware so it is valuable for people to understand the requirements.
Great. What I particularly like about your vids is that they send my head in a whirl exploring the possibilities with my own devices. Thanks.
Hooray! More Linux-y stuff! 🐧❤
Another happy Sunday afternoon watching Chris & Linux-y stuff (you've coined a new phrase there) 🐧🦆🦆♥
One thing to note is that if you want to do any kind of gaming in a VM you need VMWare because Virtualbox has a severe restriction on VRAM for the guest. Even with VMWare you can only run games with moderate resource requirements, no AAA games.
It's been a while since I installed Virtualbox in Linux, but I'm pretty sure it downloaded all the dependencies as required.
Yiir, more Linux! Thanks, Prof!
Videos such as this are some of the most important one can have when contemplating a switch to linux. Just getting started is half the battle. Once someone embarks on the linux journey, this is an excellent way to start. I still suggest installation on a separate PC, but for just trying it out, it's a great and safe way to go. As others have said, having a linux box running windows virtually is more stable and the next logical progression until one can abandon windows and it's forced-pc-upgrade mentality. Thank you Chris.
So informative, and 23 minutes went by in a blink! Thanks a lot for this video!
Definitely this video contained “wild excitement”. Looking forward to your next video!
Brilliant Mr. Barnatt!
Thanks! :)
I know how to do this but still watched this video so UA-cam recommend this to more people.
❤❤❤
Thank you! It's been some time since I ran Ubuntu desktop on Windows Virtual box but you inspired me to put Linux mint on.
If you’re using Windows (any edition greater than or equal to Pro) you can use Hyper V (instead of Virtual Box) it comes built in to Windows.
Doesn't that just create a temporary sandboxed version of Windows, though?
@@FlyboyHelosim No, Hyper V is Microsoft’s hypervisor software for Windows. It allows you to create VMs of any OS (like Virtual Box) but it is a built in Windows feature.
Hyper V does not allow for the creation of temporary VMs, you have to manually delete them and their virtual disks.
@@FlyboyHelosimNo hyperV is probably the most popular hypervisor in the IT industry
@@samuelhulme8347 I was thinking of actual 'Windows Sandbox'. Doh!
Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 is actually using Hyper-V.
Well done Chris, another excellent video 👍. I've used VirtualBox many times on Linux to run other Linux distros and Windows but I'm off now to try out some of the settings you mentioned in the video. Thanks for all your excellent content!
It has been 7 years I haven’t used Windows at all. Last week I helped my father with his desktop and I had to use Win10. I felt lost 🤣. Thank God I don’t have any software to deal that forces me to use it on Windows.
I barely ever boot into windows, I just do it to keep it up to date.
Good to know that I am not the only one, just thinking about Windows gives me severe cramps. 😂
Another feature of WSL is the ability to run Linux GUI apps on top of your existing Windows desktop and you can access files and programs from the Windows host inside a WSL machine.
Too many years ago to remember, I got my first taste of Ubuntu running it in a VMware virtual machine as it would run Folding@Home more efficiently & quickly than Windows 7. A lot more use of the command prompt then but the forums were helpful in showing what to do.
I will try to use Virtual Box to explore Linux before the end of the year. I wasn't aware that Python was needed.
Great video, as usual, Chris!
One other change I make to VBox settings is in Network. I change the Attached to: to use Bridged Network to get connected to the network directly, as I have weird issues with firewalls on the host interacting with the VMs.
I also use Windows Hyper-V which has it's own issues and limitations, but, like VBox, runs a full VM.
Another host you might want to look at is XCP-NG, a competitor to Proxmox, but meets more of my needs...
I would also love to see how we can run a version of Windows in a Linux OS, for those applications we want to keep using from Windows
Actually, I am doing it the other way around 😅 running Linux and Windows 8.1 Pro inside Virtual Box for occasional offline use. Thank you Christopher, always learning something new from your videos (while watching the video installed the extension pack).
Any reason why 8.1 Pro specifically?
@@ZettaBlitz He is a masochist.
Another excellent video on a topic I did not realize I was interested in until I saw it. Thanks!
Whenever installing software, I always prefer using a package manager, such as Chocolatey or WinGet. That way, maintenance (i.e., updates) are simplified (with something like choco upgrade all -y). Examples in this case include the C++ runtime and Python. If you don't use such a package manager, you have to visit each site periodically to check for updates, whereas the package manager way is more automated.
Many years ago I used VMware Workstation and then VirtualBox. When Microsoft released WSL I switched and never looked back. Actually I did not have any choice because WSL does not play nice with the other virtual machine managers. But the integration between the Windows and Linux world is so slick that you really do get the best of both worlds. The one area that still needs improvement is for GUI apps. WSLg does provide support for graphical apps on Linux, but I sometimes want access to a full Linux desktop. I managed to hack something together which works well over RDP but I wish it was a fully supported out of the box option in WSL.
The only reason you had to install Python was because you were installing Python support in VirtualBox. If you have no need for that, which most people won't, you can disable it during the installation procedure and avoid installing Python. PHP is better than Python for scripting anyway.
Older versions of VirtualBox, and likely other hypervisors too, can run virtual machines in software so don't require CPUs that support hardware-based virtualization. This is useful when using older computers to test and run VMs. Another note is that newer versions of VirtualBox that do support hardware-based virtualization, but still older than the version shown in this video, also don't have all those third-party dependency requirements (MS C++ and Python).
Virtualbox software emulation is a joke. Better use 'Qemu TCG' or 'bochs'.
Also if your computer is that old to not have virtualization, it is most likely not suitable for virtualization and will be too slow.
Exceptions may be modern Celeron or Ryzen 3 based computer.
@@replikvltyoutube3727 First of all, VirtualBox is not an emulator. And secondly, it all depends what OS you want to virtualize and what you want to do in that OS. I cut my teeth on a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and was fine for running current operating systems of its time, as well as Windows 95/98 and DOS, etc. in light-to-medium tasks.
@FlyboyHelosim
Question, how can find those older versions in today's age?
@@xrafter They used to be available for download on the VirtualBox website. I just quickly checked and see they've redesigned the site and I don't think the older versions are available there anymore. Maybe they can be found on the Internet Archive. I forget which exact versions are software-based, but VirtualBox went to being exclusively hardware-based as of December 2019 (if that's what you're looking for).
@@FlyboyHelosim
What about the operating systems ?
My laptop, a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (i5-4200U) had HW virtualization disabled with no option in the BIOS to enable it. Thankfully, others figured out how to enable it by using using a hex editor on the BIOS. It's a scary thing editing the BIOS when you're blindly following directions. It thankfully worked.
It is a good way to explore Linux while you still use Windows. Two buts. Many users think that setting up a VM is complicated, mostly it is not but there is this one big annoying problem with VM's, often it is difficult to get the VM to have the correct resolution (both Linux and Windows) and it is difficult to figure out how to copypaste between a VM and the host, but not difficult to set it up once you know how to it. The 2nd but: you will get a much better performance in most ways by installing that Linux-distro on a USB-stick but of course there also is value in being able to check out Linux in a VM while you still can use your host for regular tasks. The main point here is that you can only judge the performance by also trying out Linux via a USB-stick as the host, the VM will always feel more sluggish (there is very limited GPU-support for that) and have some other downsides (typically a lower quality of the sound) which could be even worse if the user lacks sufficient CPU-cores or set the VM to only use 1 CPU-core and a very low amount of RAM (2 GB or 4 GB) which sadly still is the default in both Virtualbox and virt-manager.
Thanks for this tutorial. I can sneakily send this video to my friends.
I don't have anything pertinent to say about the video, just that I look forward to Sunday when I get to see it. Reminds me of the style of the 1980's computer shows which, whilst before my time, I find interesting to see how terms have changed. We don't call them micro computers anymore, and Apple, Google & Microsoft would like to do away with the personal part of computing.
Actually, there is something pertinent; Heard of PCem? It lets you create virtual machines with a variety of different configurations, and emulates anything up to a pentium 2 with a voodoo graphics card. I found it fun for making a windows 98 machine to play with microsoft encarta. I found mindmaze a fun game when I was in school and missed it.
I'd love to see a new video on how to run Windows in Linux. Specifically from some kind of Ubuntu based OS. 👍
Nice to hear from you again.
WSL is excellent for developers. The first time I got a window with Emacs open in Windows from Wayland running on Debian in WSL, it really blew me away. For things that used to be such a faff, or rely on flaky Windows builds of GNU libraries, it's a game changer. And Microsoft have been improving the experience and capabilities of WSL all the time. Though, I'd agree, for distro evaluation, a full virtual machine experience is going to be far more representative.
An interesting video as always. I know to many Windows isn't perfect or even hated but I'm running Windows 11 24H2.
The programmes I'm running dictate I use Windows and I can live with that.
I'd be interested in a video detailing running Windows in VirtualBox in Linux.
I enjoyed the video ‘Running Linux in Windows’ & it’s given me some ideas I’d like to try out! Personally I’d rather be running things the other way around with Windows as a VM in Linux. I’ve used VirtualBox for several years but never had to do the extra steps you took to get things running, I’ve also dabbled with Gnome Boxes but had mixed results, I don’t think my PC had the resources needed. There is of course a type 1 hypervisor built into the Linux kernel, using KVM & libvirt this can run at near bare metal speeds something I’d like to try out in the future.
There are definitely a few things about this video needs to be added/called out.
1. When talking about hypervisors it's worth noting on the differences between a hypervisor and an emulator, like DosBox and PCEm. For example from the perspective of architecture - you cannot run ARM in a hypervisor - because the code is supposed to literally run off the physical CPU.
2. Could be a deeper touch on C++ redist. I think for the most of people it is not a default knowledge that the older ones are bundled in one package, while the others are all separate.
3. I am not sure why Python bindings are selected by default in your installation - but that is a deselectable component. You do not need python to run Virtual Box. You ONLY need it if you plan coding in Python using VirtualBox. So in your video you are installing two unnecessary components.
4. Since you talked about WSL - why not mentioning Hyper-V? It has GUI, both in management interface and in the VM guest output. WSL is more for developers, HyperV is more for the users.
5. Speaking of Hyper-V core which WSL2 uses anyway - I think you missed a CRITICAL point. Once you install HyperV core, your "host" machine _actually_ becomes a VM, too. The true host is now the Hypervisor. What it means in practice is that the performance in the "host" will suffer as well. Your mileage may vary but add a bitlocker, a bad AV, some other security stuff - and say hellp to 10-20% of performance lost ONLY from installing WSL/HyperV. This is a fundamental difference between Hyper-V and the rest - and this is why MS had a "HyperV Core Server" Windows Server configuration mode which takes very little space to install.
Another great video, imho that shows from start to finish.
great video and I'm glad you touched the WSL way! I've been using WSL on Windows 10 for a couple of years, it's working pretty great (nitpick - try pinging another machine on your network from WSL - it won't let you without sudo...) . as much as i know, you can't install GUI for WSL on Windows 10 - i've tried at some point, and nothing works. apparently, they made this a "Windows 11 only feature" . another thing, i believe i originally installed Debian WSL just by going to the MS Store and searching for Debian and clicking install. but it could be that there were terminal commands involved afterwards
Afternoon Chris. As a thought have you tried running Clear Linux yet? Not Clear OS even though they are both Linux based.
I’ve put it on my 7th Gen i5 potato laptop, loaded up Steam and the games that do run (Crysis 2, Far Cry, Aerofly, Civ 5) all run a good deal faster due to the Intel optimisation.
Be interesting to try it in a VM to see if there’s a notable difference. Clear’s developers say it’s for the Server space but it does remarkably well as a desktop OS.
I’m running Debian 12 (vanilla desktop) with Gnome 3 as a daily driver but only because I haven’t figured out how to mount my micro-servers during boot.
Clear Linux is more partitioned and there are only so many hours in the day. And I’ve not got that many left even if I max out, there’s a lot more behind me that ahead.
I can see me replace Windows 10 with Steam OS, which seems like I can still do word processing and the like, and also better play games...
since steam probably doesn't release isos for steamos i recommend using bazzite, i use it with kde plasma and a gtx 970 and it runs great
SteamOS is fine. Other Linux Distros are also really nice. Work just as well with Steam as SteamOS. Just fyi
SteamOS isn't really suited for systems outside of steam deck, if you like the desktop mode interface i recommend any distro which ships KDE by default e.g fedora KDE, kubuntu
Steam sets up proton and everything automatically, so it is basically the same as SteamOS once steam is installed
I've been waiting for this!
Love format of that channel, thank you!
Cool video. I have my machine dual booting Arch and Windows 10. I setup virtualbox to use a physical disk and it can run my actual run my actual Arch Linux drive but it is tedious to setup. You have to set the drive to offline and enable it using the dispart command line. It does allow me to run pacman to update arch without having to reboot into Arch though. It comes in handy.
Excellent video as always Chris. Have you considered doing a video of FydeOS? It looks interesting, particularly for older hardware.
Greetings Chris. Good to see you👍
Nicely done. I'll do it on my next computer.
Excellent video. I mostly use WSL in Windows 11, but I had an issue where I was attempting to run ansible, which doesn't run Windows but does run in linux. The ansible script needed to access a service on a specific port in Windows, but that wasn't working. However, I used virtual box and was able to configure the port and ansible when running in virtual box could talk to my service just fine.
I see from the comments that you can do the opposite, that is run Windows inside Linux as a virtual machine.
My ask is, is there a way to bundle up your current, existing Windows system in some way that would allow you to get it into a virtual machine? Seems you always start with a fresh install which is less desirable than somehow virtualizing an existing operating system.
Also can you export a virtualized operating system on one physical PC and import it into a vm of another physical PC?
Extended topic, cloning an installation, making it "read-only" so any changes are discarded when shutdown, more secure ?
or delete the clone each time and create a new clone for a new session, or if unattended install is available, delete the previous install, create a new one each time.
Nice video. It's a shame the Virtual Box installer just gives an error rather than pull down the other needed components or link straight through to them.
Hello , you forget Hyper V , it can be more powerful for some case. But always good video and didactic.
Greetings. Trying hands on Linux is going to be a need for many if they wanna continue using their systems securely, considering how MS is all set to drop support next year.
windows built-in hypervisor Hyper-V is available on Windows Pro and above. No need to install 3rd party stuff and mess around with Python. It works great with Linux distros of just about any flavor. This should be mentioned in your video. Did you skip it for a reason?
Sir, you don't need to have python to install virtuablox to install Linux.
It can be disabled by selecting python API and choosing do not install.
It is used for automation through python code I believe, and isn't needed for casual user.
I see so many post from new Linux users who mess up their machines when dual-booting, I've gotten to the point I just recommend they buy a cheap secondary computer to use as a Linux machine.
Unfortunately, I still have some programs that only run in windows. Any development that I do is in Linux, but some proprietary software isn't compatible. Yet...
It's okay, that's why you have virtual machine!)
Well, I run W7 in a VM on my LMDE6 install... But thanks, I just updated my running version and added the Guest Additions back again.
Back in 2007 when I started to use Linux when they forgot to send Vista with my prebuilt PC. Just downloaded opensuse and absolutely loved it however package dependency errors were very common and sometimes huge pain, now days I am using mint as a daily driver. Linux is very easy now days if you use it for daily tasks like browsing the web...etc. Apparently If you want to run GTA V you are out of luck now.
One VM you didn't use was QEMU. However, I can understand why you wouldn't recommend/show it: It is painfully slow because it emulates the CPU rather than taking advantage of hardware acceleration that might be available. And the command lines for launching a VM via QEMU are esoteric, long, and painful to type in every single time. VirtualBox is great for desktop OS emulation, but it is limited in what processors and systems it can emulate. For instance, Android OS with Google Play can be emulated with QEMU. Android Studio makes the QEMU experience less painful but it still runs really sluggishly.
QEMU is an emulator, VirtualBox is a hypervisor. Although similar in some end goals, they do things fundamentally differently and are for different purposes.
5'o clock tea, stiff upper lip and "wild exitement". 😅 Those Brits...
Thanks .. But how to run full fledged Window 11 in Linux (Mint). Will be highly appreciared!
Intresting.
Can you do some of the other options, such as QEMU or 86box. They have the advantage of not being encumbered by Oracle.
They are also emulators, not hypervisors.
I was hoping to see the use of WSL
Brilliant as usual. Setting me wondering though as to whether CHROME OS or CHROME OS FLEX could be installed in VirtualBox?
Yes of course. Any x86 architecture OS can be installed.
VMWare has better performance but I do care about open source. You didn't mention qemu/QtEmu for Windows although on Windows it has bad performance. VirtualBox has many CVE security issues which aren't getting fixed fast enough. More Linux! :-)
LOL, i just could need a similar video, just in reverse since i recently upgraded my lubuntu22.04. system up to lubuntu24.04. and now virtuabox doesn't work anymore, where i had installed win7 and win10 as virtual machines :-(
Thnx anyway and best regards, hope i will find out how to fix it soonly by myself :-)
Great videos as always!
How do you extend the virtual hard drive space after you’ve made a VM in VirtualBox?
Yorkie chocolate bar: does it still say "Not for girls" on the side? Anyway, a great video. Although I skipped the whole wondoze experience by transiting from Unix, through Zenix(s) to Linux. 🇨🇦
Thanks for the video, but it seems like putting a Toyota engine and transmission in a Chrysler.
I am running Windows inside Linux, thats a better option :)
Wow! I've got a Windows 10 pc that clearly I will have to make some decision on, this was brilliant but lost me before the 10 min mark!
Good Morning my best friend.............
Explaining the future
:)
What's the point of WSL, when Cygwin exist?
Very interesting and well presented. Thanks as always
Ahhhh - sorry wife and kids see you later - Chris is here with more Linux goodies!!!
Running windows apps in Linux next?
Why do i always read it Lin-ux in my head but i always say Li-nux out loud.
Great vid thanks... 👍
Hyper-V? It's free and built into Windows, right?
Only in Pro and above versions and it SUCKS big time for running Linux.
@@notjustforhackers4252I haven’t experienced problems with running Linux with Hyper V.
@@samuelhulme8347 I have!....almost daily when I was working on Azure systems.
@@notjustforhackers4252 not really true. I run Arch, kubuntu, ubuntu, kde neon with no issues.
Are you serious? You need to command line to install VB now???
If I install Windows in virtual box on my laptop running Linux Mint, can it see the serial number it needs for the licence to work?
If you're talking about the automatic activation tied to your hardware that Microsoft can see then no.
Do you know a way to turn an old PC into essentially a USB drive so you can access any and all of the drives connected to it?
I ask because 10gbps+ ethernet is expensive where as 10gbps+ USB is now standard on motherboards
I know thunderbolt 3/4 and USB4 have or usually have the ability to directly plug PC to PC with the right cable
But how about with USB 3 any versions be it 20gbps down to 5gbps
Sure, share your drives over your network.
@@stevenlace7902 at 1gbps... or spend £70 per machine to add 10gbps nope
I want to make sure there is no way to do it through USB first
Sure 125MB/s might be fast enough for some people but i have a 1GB/s drive i can move files faster doing it manually rather than connected together via ethernet...
Hi Chris, may I ask for new content other than Linux Distros and SBCs
Such as?
I run Windows inside Linux. Why would you want to do it the other way around? VirtualBox runs under Linux. Oracle killed Windows, intentionally of course, they keep killing it but it won't die
Windows isn't even slower this way. It's just "slow" like usual
I got win95 in a VirtualBox on Linux Mint just so I could run GTA Vice City, but it didn't work!! But I got it run with Lutris instead!
Always nice to hear about someone having success with Lutris!
Recently I have played my physical copy of Half Life using Lutris. No problems at all. Old games work just fine. Just DOS games need some tweak to work on DOSbox.
According to Moby Games, GTA Vice City needs a minimum of Windows 98. Maybe that's why it didn't work for you in VB, though I've not tested it myself.
Hyper-V?
Uh, I had no idea that Broadcom now owned VMware and no longer Dell. What a rigmarole to download it now. I think I'd be inclined to avoid that like the plague.
You may be wise to avoid all things Broadcom like the plague.
@@sharonwolff1 What makes you say that?
Broadcom has a habit of buying up companies, ramping up the prices, maximizing their short-term returns and then letting the product die. By that point, Broadcom has already moved on to their next victim.
🐧 👑 🥇
And if you are fed up with Microsofts crap and want total and maximum performance within Linux you go the other way around! DO NOT DUAL BOOT, Install Linux on bare metal and "maybe" use Windows on Linux within a VM, if you want or need to go "retro"
Seems like the worst possible scenario.
Linux = 👍. Windows = 👎
Linux = 👍 Microsoft Bloatware = 👎 😂😂😂
@@dougr.8653 Linux is full of bloatware as well nowadays.
Why would want to drive Linux in a VM on Windows? Better do it the other way around. Or even better get yourself a "live" distro on a thumb drive. This makes no sense.
Better for one person is not better for all persones ...
Ah, I love how Microsoft call it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" and not the more logical "Linux Subsystem for Windows" - because you're installing Linux on Windows, so it should be "Linux for Windows", right?
But, no, that would put the name "Linux" first, in front of Windows, and the marketing department can't abide that. So, weirdly, it's backwards and it's "Windows Subsystem for Linux", even though, no, that does not mean installing a Windows Subsystem on Linux, as you might imagine from the name.
It's amazing, really, how the potential of making billions of dollars can turn grown men, undertaking serious business, to become so stupidly childish. Who cares what name comes first, as long as it makes sense? But, no, "Windows" must be first and more prominent, even if that makes the name deeply illogical and backwards.
Ah, well, at least they've given up on that insistence of putting "Microsoft (R)" in front of everything everywhere, just in case you might go 5 seconds without being reminded of their "brand identity". Why do we let these idiots run the world, eh?
Why should I run Linux in Windows when I can run Linux in 1st place? There's no need for Windows.
So you can try it out first. :)
Software support is garbage on linux, everything is a dependency nightmare. Nothing worked smoothly for me.
@@kinnikuzero The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to find ways NOT step on its own toes caused by a culture of geeks and hacks, so called open-source software with a license of mish mash hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionality supporting the windows O/S privacy platform nightmare of hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage… Its windows or nothing for the majority… In computing terms, the people behind all aspects of the modern O/S is fragmented, geek inspired, continual and constant tinkering of platforms to do anything and everything, jack of all trades master of none vibe, catering to the private for profit sector with Linux has the back stage support act. "Oh don't you know Linux is free...." No its not, its a development platform for the private sector, Linux is the private sectors toolbox. Has plenty of tools developing it. hahahaha
It's for testing purposes and for people who want to run multiple operating systems from a single physical machine.
@@kinnikuzero The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to try and NOT step on its own toes caused by a geek culture of hacks, so called open-source software and license mish mash of hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionally supporting the windows O/S privacy nightmare hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage…
The entire subsystem of Linux is garbage. it is simply for geeks and developers to tinker and hack alongside its privatized counterpart Windows.. The GUIs are haphazard, Illogical most of the time and stooped in command line and package dependency hell, with people who are attempting to create software that constantly attempts to find ways NOT step on its own toes caused by a culture of geeks and hacks, so called open-source software with a license of mish mash hell and attempts to have some kind of unofficial functionality supporting the windows O/S privacy platform nightmare of hell. In short… The entire OS landscape is total garbage… Its windows or nothing for the majority… In computing terms, the people behind all aspects of the modern O/S is fragmented, geek inspired, continual and constant tinkering of platforms to do anything and everything, jack of all trades master of none vibe, catering to the private for profit sector with Linux as the back stage support act. "Oh don't you know Linux is free...." No its not, its a development platform for the private sector, Linux is the private sectors toolbox. Has plenty of tools developing it. hahahaha
That all may be true but what alternatives do any of us have?
Bill Gates, is that you?
@@sharonwolff1 That's the point... There is no alternatives.. The idea Linux is an alternative is just simply PR guff... Linux is a tool for developers, that's pretty much it.