Running Manjaro in a Virtualization on Windows 11

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Hi,
I have been using Manjaro as my main system for many years now and for various reasons have bought a new Windows 11 PC and need to use Windows for certain things, but would like to keep i.e. my evolution mail and private data in Manjaro. I have had dual boot options on most of my PCs, but truth is, I at some stage stopped using the other system.

I would like to try to run Manjaro in a virtual box so that I can start it inside Windows. Is there any “beginners guide” or at least a recommendation for a good virtualization that runs in Windows? All the topics I have looked at run Windows in the Virtual machine or 2 linux versions or Mac OS…

Any help greatly appreciated.

(AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX RAM 32.0 GB RTX4070 1TB SSD)

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VirtualBox (open-source) and VMware Workstation (commercial) are the most commonly used; of the two I’d personally recommend VMware Workstation, having used it for many years.

You should nonetheless decide for yourself; install each and see which suits you.

You could also play with pre-configured Manjaro images for VirtualBox or VMware.

Regards.

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That is normal for dual-boot.

With a type-2 hypervisor - Manjaro works OOB as guest in VirtualBox and VMware Workstation.

My approach is running Windows as guest - because using Linux as the host OS provides a more stable environment than using Windows.

You can take a step further and run everything as virtual using https://xenproject.org/

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USE WSL if you want to switch to windows and use only some basic linux-applications as you’re requesting. no need for a vm. there are a lot of apps in ms-win to run linux-ui based apps straight in windows.

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I’d certainly have Win11 as the guest OS. That way any borkage is easily recoverable, if not preventable to a degree, such as boot being stuffed up during a Windows update.

Just my 2p worth. :wink:

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Thanks for all the replies! I did install Virtual Box and might install VMware as well, but VB seems to be simple enough. (Haven’t tried setting up Manjaro in it, just the installation so far.)

On the previous PC I only had Manjaro with Wine, - but to be honest that wasn’t the solution. Might work for mainstream software, but everything I installed in Wine did not work or stopped working at some stage. So the idea is to try it the other way around. (Yes I know, Wine is not Virtualization, but I only needed very little exotic Windows stuff)

Very hesitant to wipe the new PC and rely on the VM for Windows. Plus needing my customer’s VDI to run under Windows/Horizon client that would for sure stretch my knowledge building to the max.

Not saying that after 2 month of stupid restarts in the middle of a Teams call I will regret and learn :smiley:

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I did install Manjaro in the Virtual Box - sooo easy. Speechless. I can only hope that using it is as flawless. Any beginners - go for it, nothing to be afraid of!

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Some guidance can be found in [root tip] [How To] VirtualBox - Installation - USB - Shared Folder

A small gotcha - do not run VirtualBox and VMware simultanously - the CPU’s virtual extensions does allow for simultanous access from different hypervisors - be warned :dragon_face:

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