Windows 8 and Linux

[hgm]

I bought a new laptop, (Asus X301A-RX163H-3rd i3-3110M), and it came with Windows 8 installed. As I intend this to be my new workhorse for program development, and I develop for both Windows and Linux, (WinBoard/XBoard, for instance), I want to be able to run both these OS on it.

On my old laptop I used for this purpose (a now semi-broken 1.3GHz machine with 512MB RAM) I used to have a dual boot Win XP / Ubuntu 10.04 system. Before that I tried to run Ubuntu 8.04 on VirtualBox, but that did not work, as either Ubuntu would not run because the VB did not have enough RAM, or VB would not start because Windows complained it was using too much RAM. The dual-boot was a natural solution, as due to a disk crash I had replaced the original HD of 40GB by the (then smallest) 120 GB, but the recovery software could only put an exact image back, so I had 80GB of unpartitioned empty disk space available for Linux.

The setup was not ideal, however: I could mount the Windows partitions under Linux, but just as read-only when I had closed Windows by hibernation (which I always did, as rebooting takes forever). And under Windows I could not access the Linux partitions at all.

Is there a better way to do it, now that I have a machine which much more generous RAM and disk space? Are there virtual machines that would allow me to access the file system of the host machine? Or is dual-boot still the best option?

How should I proceed anyway? I suppose with a virtual machine I could just download and install the required software under Windows, and then start the virtual machine telling it which file to use as a Linux image to install on that. But for the dual-boot, is it possible now to do that directly from the internet under Windows? Or should I go through the chore of preparing a boot device on a memory stick? What is the recommended procedure and software for this?

[sje]

Get a second machine. Because Windows refuses to play nicely with others, put it on the weaker, cheaper machine and use it the least amount possible.

Windows and same-drive, dual-boot don't belong together. With a second drive (not a slow memory stick) connected by fast USB or FireWire could make a dual boot more plausible. Still, save yourself a headache and get a second machine.

Use DropBox for synchronization. The first 2 GB is free.

[Evert]

Virtual machines may be the easiest way to go; I found dual-booting so incredibly annoying that I just stopped doing it. I haven't used Windows since so I can't really comment on recent developments in doing this sort of thing, but I used a separate FAT32 partition to share data between Windows and Linux. I think that would still work correctly (ie, read/write), even if you put the system in hibernation rather than actually shutting it down.

But try a virtual machine first; it'll give you the benefit of being able to develop and debug on both systems without the pain of dual booting.

[pocopito]

I guess that if you have enough RAM on your laptop the best solution is to install some virtualization software (virtual box and vmaware are for free) and install whatever linux distro you prefer on it (maybe one with low memory usage: xubuntu?).

I don't understand completly this sentence: "I suppose with a virtual machine I could just download and install the required software under Windows,..."

but my advice is to download the iso file of the distro you prefer, create a virtual machine, and "feed" it with the iso. Then you start the virtual machine and the installation process will start normally.

I guess that both virtualbox and vmware provide tools for, at least, share a common folder between the host OS (widnows8) and the guest.

Finally, if you decide for the dual boot solution, the unetbootin application creates a bootable pendrive from an iso image, the same one that you'd use to crate the virtual machine (the pendrive must be at least 2 GB and depending on the iso file size, it could be un-sufficient.

Best

E Diaz

[sje]

Apple does support running Windows as a virtual machine.

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

But you may still have that old memory allocation problem in xboard + OS/X, so you'd have to fix that first. And it would be expensive.

Idea: Consider buying a computer at a pawn shop. Sometimes a good deal can be had, particularly if the pawn broker is not technically savvy.

[hgm]

Memory allocation problem?

[tpetzke]

For some Apple might be no alternative as its business is ethical challenged.

http://ethisphere.com/past-wme-honorees/wme2011/

Guess who is on the list (Microsoft) and who is not (Apple).

Thomas...

[spambanane]

I did use windows and linux (dualboot) on the same machine for years. without any problems. now i use wine for all windows related stuff.

best thing is to install windows first. after that you need to repartition the hard disk to make room for linux (make a backup of the windows partition first). use the linux boot manager to start windows or linux.

there are tons of howtos, just google for "windows 8 linux dualboot" or similiar. one that I came across:

http://apcmag.com/how-to-dual-boot-wind ... -linux.htm

[Roman Hartmann]

What about a downgrade to Windows 7? You might have to pay for the W7 licence though but at least you get something you're used to.

Alternatively you could try to install Linux. But most probably not all devices are going to work properly. In my experience it's often not so easy to get Linux working smooth on a Laptop.

Roman

[sje]

Memory allocation problem?

Yes; recall that xboard running in ICS mode under Mac OS/X would crash randomly with a "corrupted allocation" error signaled by the run time support. Turning on massive logging seemed to make that error occur less frequently (or maybe not at all).

And there was also the occasional mystery move takeback between games.

I think these issues wouldn't be too hard to solve if you got yourself a Mac, but they are quite difficult to fix if you try to do it remotely.