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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Can a Linux installation be run as a VM in Windows? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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This might sound daft, but something similar used to work with live discs.

I've got Windows 10 and Mint 21.1 dual booting on my computer at the moment. Every so often I'll realise that I've missed something from my Windows installation. If it's important, I then have to boot to Windows to get the information, or the settings etc.

Is there a way to virtualise my Mint installation so that I can run both the OSs at once to make sure that I've got everything?

VirtualBox had a tool to do this with a live USB, but that was back in the MBR days, so it probably won't work with modern hardware.

EDIT: Sorry, I should clarify, Mint and Windows are on the same physical disk, and the plan is to remove Windows once I'm done.

Update: I'm giving up. It looks like it is possible if you have separate disks with separate boot partitions, but getting it to work with a shared boot partition is harder work than I'm willing to do right now.

VMware Player can use a partition or disk, but might be in read only mode, I couldn't get far enough to check.

Thanks for all the replies :)

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[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No worries, VMware or some of the other virtualization software's should work in this case as most other comments pointed out. Probably the most simple and straight to the point.

If you have the urge to tinker, another potential item or route you can look at is a proxmox machine. You can run multiple VMs in tandem at the same time. This would run on a standalone machine.

You would then be able to remote desktop into any virtualized OS on your home network. You can use a software like parsec which I like to access each machine from a clean interface.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the suggestions, but you might be misunderstanding me. I've already got Windows 10 and Mint installed on the same drive, and I was hoping to find a way to boot the existing Mint installation as a VM under Windows.

There were Windows programs that could do something similar in the past, using VirtualBox, but it looks like the Linux distro needs to be on its own drive with its own boot partition for it to work.