I wish to work on Linux, but the only machine l have at my disposal is my brother’s windows laptop when it’s free. Can I create a virtual Linux system using QEMU ?

  • Denys Nykula@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    What GNU/Linux applications do you want to use? If you want desktop free software such as Firefox, LibreOffice, LMMS, Inkscape or Kdenlive, you can install many of them directly on Windows, it will run faster than a virtual machine. If you want to learn the command line, such as bash, curl, vim, imagemagick and ffmpeg, or program in C or C++ using the GNU toolchain, try WSL, from which you can access your Windows files under /mnt/c, /mnt/d etc. A standalone virtual machine makes sense when you want to play with a desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME, or a tiny compositor such as Sway, or a rare desktop app that isn’t cross-platform. But it’s more pleasant to run them on hardware directly, having installed Debian or Fedora on a USB SSD.

      • Denys Nykula@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        WSL is the name of the tool, it installs an Ubuntu virtual machine that integrates with Windows in a way that you don’t have to care about disk sizes, shared folders or remote access. It gives you an Ubuntu bash window after a few minutes of automatic downloading. Under WSL, I do run both vim and ffmpeg OK. You can install most packages you want like on a full Ubuntu installation.

          • Denys Nykula@piefed.socialEnglish
            4·
            2 months ago

            While I don’t know whether MX Linux supports WSL (just a few distributions do), I know that MX is based on Debian, and you can install Debian under WSL with wsl --install -d Debian. Their console experience is very similar.

          • Denys Nykula@piefed.socialEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            You can install a terminal multiplexer: sudo apt-get install byobu - and launch it: byobu, then follow the instructions on how to use multiple CLI apps at the same time. For example, install zsh, vim, ffmpeg and other console programs you wanted, and launch them in multiple byobu tabs. If you want to install a desktop application, you can do that with apt-get as well, and WSL will create a shortcut in your Windows start menu. Basically, you work on your Windows desktop and use GNU/Linux apps at the same time.