Microsoft designs Windows with the assumption that it will be the only operating system on a computer drive. So it doesn’t play nice when you have to share that drive with another operating system. Anyone who has tried to dual boot Windows and Linux will tell you that it rarely goes smoothly.
Even if you don’t have any problems during the installation process, you can almost be sure that you will face some conflicts with the OS. I say this as someone who has had a dual boot workstation for years. Clock synchronization errors, bootloader errors or BitLocker errors are almost inevitable. But there is a better way.
Meet Proxmox
An operating system for operating systems
Proxmox is a custom operating system as it is purely designed to manage virtual machines (VMs) and lightweight containers with minimal overhead. Think of it as an operating system for operating systems – an “OS startup” if you will.
As opposed to keeping both operating systems installed on the same drive, Proxmox lets you install them as siled virtual machines that you can run side by side at the same time. They never conflict with each other and there is no need to load back and forth between them. Proxmox even supports hardware switching, so your virtual machines can directly use hardware components like your computer’s GPU.
You can run many of these virtual machines at the same time, depending on how powerful your computer is. I even have an Android phone VM installed on Proxmox.
Proxmox is not intended to replace a traditional operating system, so you won’t install it on your main computer. Designed to work in a headless environment. Basically, you have to access it through the web UI other devices. Any device that can open a web browser will allow you to interact with your Proxmox machine and the virtual machines running on it.
In addition to virtual machines, you can use your Proxmox server to provide self-service as your own media server, your own Google photos clone, your home assistant, your password manager, and more.
Setting up a Windows machine in Proxmox
Creating and running a Windows VM
To do this you will need two things.
-
Windows installer image in .iso format
-
A virtual machine to install Windows
In your Proxmox web interface, go to the local storage tab and select ISO images > Download URL. hold Download link from Microsoft website and paste it in the URL box. Give the ISO a simple name and start booting.
Next, let’s create a Windows virtual machine using this installer image. We’ll click on the “Create VM” button in the upper right corner and select the ISO we downloaded. Leave the rest of the settings as default.
The installation window will switch from OS to System. Here, select your SSD drive and allocate as much storage as you want.
Next comes the CPU section. Select the number of cores you want to assign to this VM. Leave the rest of the settings as they are.
Allocate at least 4 GB of RAM under Memory. And click “Start” to start the VM.
The active virtual machine will have a small green icon next to its name in the left pane. Click the “Console” button to open the screen with the viewport. Within this screen, you can connect directly to the virtual machine on any device.
Then you just need to click Windows setup settings and Windows VM will be ready to use. If you find the default web “noVNC” interface too cumbersome, you can also use the classic one Windows Remote Desktop (RDP) to access your virtual machine remotely.
- Brand
-
Zettlab
- CPU
-
RK3588
- Memory
-
16 GB LPDDR4x
- Driver Bays
-
4x 3.5-inch, 1x M.2 NVMe
Getting a Linux desktop on Proxmox
Easy to install and manage
If you need simple TTY environment Creating one for your Linux virtual machine is quite simple. Just paste the community script for your target OS into the Proxmox shell and it will do all the work for you.
However, if you need a full GUI desktop, it’s better to get the installer image in .iso format like we do for Windows.
Setting up a virtual machine for a Linux system is simpler. Just configure the CPU cores, memory and RAM as desired and leave the rest as default.
Unless you choose an advanced distro like Arch, you’ll end up in a live Linux environment where you can use a point-and-click installer. After installation, the OS should reboot into a full virtual machine.
If you want to avoid the web console and access it through a Linux machine, consider integrating Proxmox with virt-manager. This will give you better buffering and smoother performance.
Run both operating systems at the same time
You can leave VMs in the background and load them into the viewport of your choice to use whenever you want. This will save you the hassle of reloading. Moreover, there will be no conflict because virtual machines exist in their own isolated space.
