Getting Started with Linux, the Right Way
Tuesday, 04 March 2025, 05:25 PM# tech linux
Having a good hold on using Linux is very important for developers, but it can be daunting to get into it. Getting it up and running as a Virtual Machine inside your Windows Desktop is the easiest way to go about it.
How does this work?
Generally Applications talk to the Operating System to get things done. In case you want to run an OS e.g. Linux inside your machine installed OS e.g. Windows, then the Linux is still yet another application running on top of your Windows. This adds an extra step in the performance of Linux and causes slowdown. This is called "Emulation", where every instruction has to be translated by someone (here: VirtualBox) for the machine. This needs to be done even if the instruction set matches to the OS. Seems quite a waste, doesn't it?
Virtualization is a permission you give to your bios to allow the CPU to be given direct access, to an application (here: VirtualBox running Linux) and your Operating System (here: Windows) is bypassed. This makes your Windows the "Host OS" and the Linux "Guest OS". Again, your Guest OS installation must match your CPU architecture, as it will use the CPU directly. If the instruction set does not match, e.g. if you want to run arm64 guest (e.g. Android) on x64 host (Windows 10), then it will fallback to emulation mode. VirtualBox will have to do the work of translating the arm64 instructions to x64.
Bios Settings
This is a pre-requisite. Go to your bios and look for a setting which says something like "Virtualization". This setting needs to be turned on. Save your bios settings and boot to your Windows Desktop.
Installing VirtualBox
Download VirtualBox. Install it. The installation wizard may ask you to install latest C++ Redistributable which is a common prerequisite for a lot of software. If your Windows installation is old, this error won't even come. Get it from this Page, go for the latest.
Getting the Right Linux
Linux comes in many varieties (may be too many for its own good). In our case we will go with Lubuntu. It is my personal favourite as for a fully functional and capable Ubuntu-esque Linux, it is the lightest too. So I don't see any reason to install anything other than this.
Download Lubuntu and always go for "LTS" even if the version number is not the latest. It means "Long Term Support" and the chart below on the page shows how long they get security updates.
Setting Up Lubuntu inside VirtualBox
Now go back to VirtualBox and follow the instructions mentioned in the video below from 6:10.
Hope this was useful to you and if you want to go further and make this Linux installation actually useful, then follow this next post.