To Tux or not to Tux

[Brian Cluff]

I'm a big fan of running a hybid environment exactly the way you 
describe.  It lets you have you cake and eat it too, and will work for 
95% of everyone out there.

Additionally to what you described I would, at minimum, setup his home 
directory as a shared directory onto the Linux side of the setup, then 
once you have everything on the windows side setup exactly the way you 
like it take a snapshot of the way things are and have him run off the 
snapshot.  Then when things get really nasty you can discard the 
infected snapshot and then immediatly take a new snapshot of everything 
in pristine condition, saving you hours of work.

You might also want to consider not setting up a network on the windows 
VM unless it's strictly needed.  That will prevent the VM from being 
used for the everyday tasks when he should be using the Linux part of 
the computer.  Maybe setup a firewall so that the machine can only go to 
certain places if the network is used.

Lastly, and most secure, if you can get away with it, you can set the 
VM's hard drive as immutable.  That setting will take a snapshot of the 
VM every time it starts, but on exit the snapshot will be thrown away 
along with any changes/infections.  That will leave you with a pristine 
system every single time and the system will stay clean and work 
perfectly forever.  This only works if the software doesn't require 
regular changes to it's config.  If you would like to do this in virtual 
box, the GUI does not yet allow you to set a VM drive as immutable, so 
you will have to use the vboxmanage tool to accomplish the setting.

Of course none of this will fly at all unless this person is completely 
willing to deal with the differences and learning curve. Unless they 
completely buy into it, I wouldn't waste my time... an answer of "I 
guess I'll try it" or anything wishy washy like that will just end up 
with you having to reinstall the machine to windows.  You need an answer 
of something like "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make my 
computer run smoothly all the time."

PS, if one of his pieces of software that he can't live without is 
quickbooks, keep in mind that you can't store it's config/database on a 
network share, which is what the shared folders on Virtualbox look like 
like to windows.   For Quickbooks, just create a second Virtual Hard 
drive for the system who's only reason for existing is to hold the 
quickbooks database.... just make sure you don't set it to immutable :)

Brian Cluff

On 04/18/2016 11:18 PM, Wayne D wrote:
> The EXISTING scenario:  Win 7 machine with stability issues that are 
> most likely due to a combination of gremlins that this user attracts 
> like dust to a mop over a period of 6 to 9 months of use.  Data 
> corruption is a possibility, Virii and other nasties are most likely 
> lurking as well.  I suspect MUCH of it has been a result of internet 
> activity.
>
> It's a 4 core machine and the user is not happy with the speed AND has 
> complained of heat issues.  This machine is VERY important. He makes 
> his living using apps on this machine. Downtime must be kept to a 
> absolute minimum.  Apps are 50% Web based and 50% local WINDOWS ONLY 
> software.
>
>
>
> MY solution:  Build a a new HYBRID machine that hardware for hardware 
> is a updated clone of my own primary machine.  Based on LinuxMINT 17.3 
> Cinnamon and run win10 inside a VM for those apps that require it and 
> run chrome or Firefox for the web based stuff from the Linux side..   
> Backups via clonezilla and copies of the vm file.
>
> Alternate is to run pure win10 with ACRONIS for backup.
>
>
> The new machine will consist of:
> ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 8 x SATA 6GB/s USB 
> 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS (MILITARY GRADE MB)
>
> 16Gb (4x4) G.SKILL Sniper Series 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
>
> AMD FX-8370 Black Edition 8 Core CPU Processor AM3+ 4300Mhz 125W 16MB
>
> Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD  BOOT DRIVE
>
> WD Black 7200 Rpm 1TB DATA drive
>
> Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow Edition VN40006W2N No PS Mid Tower Case
>
> LG Electronics 14x Internal BDXL Blu-Ray Burner Rewriter WH14NS40
>
> Antec Earthwatts 650W ATX12V/EPS12V 650 Energy Star Certified Power 
> Supply EA-650 Platinum
>
> VisionTek Radeon 7750 SFF 1GB DDR3 3M (2x HDMI, miniDP) Graphics Card 
> - 900574
>
> 3 - Noctua NF-F12 PWM Cooling Fans
>
> Thermaltake NiC C5 cpu cooler with 2 push-pull 120mm fans 99 cfm
>
>
> THE QUESTION TO ALL OF YOU:   DOES THIS SEEM A VIABLE SOLUTION to YOU?
>
>
> Thanks for your replies.
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