I have a friend thats setting up linux (ubuntu) on his machine. He has a windows installation. I personally use mac as my primary OS, but I’ve had a linux partition on my machine as well, and I’m having a slightly hard time giving him good advice as to what solution he should choose when setting up linux (I don’t even know how I would partition a disk on a windows machine to prep it for dual booting).

My question is quite simple: What are the pros/cons of WSL vs. Dual Booting vs. Virtualbox, both with regards to setup and with regards to usage?

  • Kangie@aussie.zoneEnglish
    12·
    4 months ago

    WSL2 is “fine”. It has some performance issues when accessing files on the windows side of things from sick

    On a technical level it’s a Linux VM running containers for Distributions that get some mounts and for WSLg a directx video device.

    WSLg also provides an X server, Wayland compositor and a Pulse server so most gui apps “just work”.

    Good way to start learning or get a taste for things, and easier than a VM to get started.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      31·
      4 months ago

      You don’t get the immersion of a new OS when you use wsl though. Which is fine if you just want some Linux compatibility for things like docker, but if you want the whole “desktop experience” then a VM is a better option. Either Hyper-V or VirtualBox will give you that with reasonable performance.