document updated 17 years ago, on Apr 7, 2007
Goals
- Be able to dual-boot into either Windows or Linux
- Windows-on-bare-metal is required because, until very recently, hardware 3D acceleration hasn't been available to
guest OS's. Even still, drivers are almost certain to remain a thorn in the side, and one of the really major reasons of running Windows is for its widespread hardware support.
- Linux-on-bare-metal would be nice. The main reason is that I would like to ditch Windows eventually, and designing my whole system around Windows being mandatory is ideologically unacceptable.
- Be able to run Linux inside Windows... I need Linux available at all times.
Difficulties
There are apparently difficulties when trying to run the same OS both on bare metal (via dual-boot), and within a VM when the other OS is hosting:
"The issues arise because the virtual hardware that the operating system sees when it is running in a
virtual machine is different from the physical hardware it sees when it is running directly on the
host computer. It is as if you were removing the boot drive from one physical computer and running
the operating system installed there in a second computer with a different motherboard, video card
and other peripherals . then moving it back and forth between the two systems.
"The general approach for resolving these issues is to set up profiles for each of the two operating
environments. the virtual machine and the physical computer. You can then choose the appropriate
profile when you start the operating system. On some hardware, however, booting a previously
installed operating system within a virtual machine may not work."
Virtualization software
- VMware: When running the guest OS from a phystical disk partition, it does not support this when the partition is on a SATA disk. [1]