[gtrak]

There is an alternative that I have found quite useful.

Create a Dualboot situation for normal linux work but set up a VM in your windows host that points to your bootloader and linux partition.

Now you have the best of both worlds, more memory and speed when you want it with native boot, but access to the dev environment from windows.

This was most effective in the case where a client required proprietary windows-only VPN software, but I wanted my dev environment. Configuring a vpn'd bridge adapter between Virtualbox+linux-guest and Windows host was a piece of cake.

[dmschulman]

I've been looking into this setup as well, having dual booted all my machines previously. Though rebooting takes only a few seconds it feels like more work than it actually is, complicate that with having to enter encryption passwords, reopen all your software and load up files, etc, I think keeping everything under one OS and running a VM and then being able to boot into that VM natively when necessary seems like the best modern solution for my needs

[Qwertystop]

Can you provide any guidance on how to do this? Can it be done when the Linux partition is on a non-NTFS filesystem? It sounds extremely convenient, especially as I've already got a dual-boot setup.

[gtrak]

The easy and dangerous way is to mount your entire hard drive inside virtualbox. Follow instructions here: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk

The issue occurs when you for example accidentally boot windows within windows, you can possibly get file corruption.

The workaround is to configure a virtual disk with only the partition you need plus a bootloader that can load it up. I haven't gotten that far.

EDIT: It seems there is an article about how to do this: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-dual-boot-and-virtualize-the-sa...