When booted into Linux, I would like to be to run my Windows boot disk as a VM inside of Linux.
Any heavy-duty Windows only tasks, I will do a boot into Windows.
Are there any recommend newb friend guides for setting up a dual boot Windows10 and Linux system on individual disk?
I think what I need to do for item #2 is to setup a “raw disk” within a VM Workstation solution. For those using this as part of their workflow, what VM software is recommended (VMWare, VirtualBox, and…)?
The other thing I’m not sure about is what format is stable for both Linux and Windows 10? I have a number of SSDs, an 8tb on machine archive, and an NVMe drive.
I also have a number of peripherals I need to test with Linux. I have a Plantronics headset, Logitech keyboard and Logitech mouse. If I only get “full” support in Windows, I can deal with that.
Before anyone can help you fulfill your goals we need the exact specs of your system, so we can try and figure out which of the many different distros might run stable on your system.
6950x
Will be: ASUS X99-E-10G WS
128 gb ram
x2 Titan X’s
x1 Samsung 840 -> Windows
x1 Samsung 840 -> Linux
x1 Crucial 2tb -> Storage (Game libraries, applications, etc.)
x1 Samsung 850 -> moar storage
x1 HGST -> Local Working Store (currently synced with FreeNAS)
x1 Samsung 960 Pro NVMe -> Datasets and what not. Wall-o-monitors
Note: Likely swapping the motherboard and case this weekend for better air flow spacing on my video cards.
I use this for Machine Learning research, programming, school work and working for “the wo/man” work. I would like to try rolling my own modified Digits box.
If this scenario works out, I will be rolling on a backup workstation and a laptop.
I have one question to ask you that I forgot. Why do you want to shy away from Windows and start using Linux? This is very important because there are a lot of things Linux just doesn’t support yet, it can be a real bitch to setup up and get it running stable. You really have to want to leave the dark side and go to the light side (switch from Windows to Linux)
Ok now for the good news you probably can accomplish your first goal except with a few restrictions. The first restriction is Linux’s support for multi-monitor is very poor right now. You should be able to get one maybe two monitors to work, but a wall of monitors seems very unlikely. Second, restriction finding the right drivers for those Titan X’s. Third I assume you want to run those two Titan X’s in SLI mode. Well I don’t think Linux has suport for SLI, I don’t know for sure I guess a Google search is in order.
Windows does not like to run in a VM from Linux but I haven’t tried with Win10. It usually likes to be the first installed then you setup a second boot for linux.
If I were you I’d go for 1 or the other, either dual boot or run Linux or Win in a VM. It’s a bit redundant to do both IMO.
That many monitors with multiple nvidia GPUs will likely be hell to set up in a workable manner. Several years ago nvidia intentionally removed a feature from their drivers to make them have “feature parity” with windows and now you basically can’t do anything more than 3 monitors
Do some reading about “base mosaic” is what I think it was called
Fair point. I figured it would allow me to keep the same Windows configuration up-to-date as most of my productivity software would still live in Windows.
Also, this method would allow me to avoid having to worry about hardware pass through to the Windows system.
Most of the time I would be using the Windows system in VM for light productivity tasks. When required, I would boot fully into Windows to run GPU heavy operations.
From my own experience it is generally simpler when dual booting to boot Linux inside Windows that vice versa. The main reason is due to Windows Licence activation and the way drivers are installed etc.
If you have Windows 10 Pro you can simply disable the Linux disks on disk manager and then assign them to a VM in HyperV. Provided you are on a common distro that has the HyperV modules in the kernel it will now boot as a VM without issue.
The main disadvantage to this is that Microsoft treats Linux as a server OS not a desktop OS so hyperV support for high resolutions and openGL and sound is poor to non existent. I found using a good terminal emulator that makes x11 pass-thru possible for the apps via SSH worked well enough.
Install Linux on another set of desktop hardware and set it up as a headless Linux workstation for ML research.
To play with the initially proposed configuration, I will find a laptop with a couple of drives, or one large enough to partition, and “learn” with that.