Asking if it would be better to install Ubuntu and through virtualbox handle Windows 10 instead of dual booting my pc

Question

I recently found out the ability to use virtual machines instead of dual installation Ubuntu and Windows. Thinking of installing just Ubuntu, and through virtualbox have a Windows installation. What are the pros of cons of this? Thank you for any insight!

Answer 1

The choice is lead by a basic decision

if your PC has better RAM and CPU, u'd want to go for virtualization as it uses more CPU and RAM because your basic OS will run, and in a virtual machine software, runs your other operating system which further runs any program you want. In short, it takes more RAM and CPU usage.

However, if you choose dual-boot, then CPU and RAM usage is less, but your computer memory (hard-disk) will be strictly divided, restricting your memory limits to each OS, as dedicated during installation.

Hope it helps. Cheers

Answer 2

Assuming you want Ubuntu as the main operating system, where you want to spend most of the time:

• Dual boot to use the full power of the computer for Windows

  • If you want to run 'heavy' tasks in Windows, for example games or advanced graphics or calculations
  • If you have a rather old or weak computer, so that Window will not get enough CPU horsepower or RAM in a virtual machine even for lighter tasks.
• You can have a common 'data' partition with the NTFS file system, where you can write and read data by Ubuntu as well as Windows.

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• The limit is not sharp, you should test a virtual system to find out if it works well for your tasks. Maybe a rule of thumb would be that the computer has
  • at least 4 CPUs/threads and 4 GB RAM for light tasks.
  • I would prefer 8 GB RAM or more and it helps a lot to have 6 or more CPUs/treads in order for the virtual machine to run well.

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• Run Windows in a virtual machine
  • If you have enough CPU horsepower and RAM to allocate to the virtual machine and still run the host operating system (Ubuntu) without problems.
  • If you want to have Ubuntu running all the time, also when you run Windows.