[Tutor] OT: Recommendations for a Linux distribution to dual-boot with Win7-64 bit

[Alan Gauld]

On 29/06/16 00:34, David Rock wrote:

> If you value Alan’s opinion

Just to be clear, I run mint because it works but I've used many
distros in the past, starting with Slackware then Red Hat then
Mandrake and Ubuntu with equally good results. I don't like
Ubuntu's Unity UI so switched to Mint but it's a subjective
rather than political/idealogical/technical decision.

> I still say a dry run in a VM to get a feel for it would do wonders 

I totally agree. I regularly spin up new distros just to take a
look (Vector, TinyLinux, Gentoo, CentOS, have all been on a VM
near me :-)

As for performance hit of a VM - I only really notice it on graphics
intensive stuff.

Let me put it another way: many commercial data centers now only
run servers under VMs. The extra maintainability, security and
safety outweighs the small performance hit. When you buy a
"server" from a data center these days you are most likely
buying a VM image running on a much bigger box.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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