Gnome's Boxes is pretty easy to use and of course uses qemu + KVM. This would be a type 1 hypervisor vs. Virtualbox's type 2. It is point and click like Virtualbox. You don't need to use Gnome's DE to use Boxes.
I have seen people post about your specific error for years when using the virtualbox website's repository instead of their own distro's repository (if it exists).
I just tried Gnome Boxes and it seems to work mostly fine but the only problem I’m having is that I’m trying to run a Windows XP virtual machine but I can’t figure out how to get files from my host to the guest. Apparently, I need some software to be running on the guest but the website that I need to download the software from doesn’t work in internet explorer and I obviously can’t just download it on the host and transfer it to the guest.
In Boxes, power down your XP VM, click Settings -> Sharing Panel -> Enable Sharing toggle. Click File Sharing and enable File Sharing. Power on the VM.
At that point you should be able to drag and drop from your host direct into your VM for a file transfer.
You can also click the vertical dots menu in the Guest's console "screen" and click Send File... menu option.
In the same menu you can click Devices & Shares -> Realtek USB or whatever -> Local Folder -> Select from the dropdown for the Host's folder that you'd like to share -> Save -> Make sure Toggle on the right is on.
Then your folder, I believe in XP, will show up as a removable drive like a USB drive would.
Ok so I’ve already determined a solution for Boxes but I should mention that none what you said works for me. I’m not sure if I have a different version of Boxes than you (even though the only version that seems to exist is the one on flathub) but there is no sharing panel in settings. The only three options in settings is keyboard shortcuts, help and about boxes. When I’m running a VM, the option for “send file” is grayed out and can’t be selected.
For “devices & shares” that is, at least for me, located in the preferences for each VM. I can’t use USB devices because it’s not supported in the flatpak version and if I try to use the shared folders option, the folder I specified doesn’t show up in the VM. From what I can tell this might be an issue specific to some guests, like Windows XP, because Boxes links to a specific program that the guest needs to be running but when I try to run it in Windows XP, I get an error message stating that Windows XP isn’t a supported guest.
The only solution that seems to work for me, is taking the files I want to use in the VM and compress them into an iso file (if they’re not already) and mount it to the VM. It might be tedious but it’s the only thing that seems to be working for me.
I probably wouldn’t describe it as similar, but virt-manager is fairly simple but powerful at the same time (like it will let you expose more advanced KVM/QEMU features like PCIe passthrough and similar).
But like the other guy said, gnome boxes is very straight forward and probably more similar in it’s simplicity.
They both use QEMU + KVM, so you can have both virt-manager and boxes installed at once, and I believe virt-manager (probably boxes too) easily let you use existing VirtualBox .vdi files, if you’ve got an existing VM you want to run. Also like I said before, KVM is already mainlined into the Linux kernel, so you don’t have to install sketchy kernel modules and stuff.
I’ve only used VirtualBox once though, so I can’t really compare them.
I tried both virt-manager and Gnome Boxes but I’m having issues with both of them.
Gnome Boxes works mostly fine but I can’t seem to get files from the host to the guest. It says that the guest is supposed to have some special software but I’m trying to use Windows XP and I can’t seem to figure out how to get the required software because the website doesn’t work in internet explorer and I obviously can’t just download it from the host and transfer it over.
For virt-manager, it’s giving me an error message about not being able to connect to "libvirt qemu:///system" and it wont let me install a virtual machine. I’m assuming that I’m supposed to download “libvirtd”, but I can’t figure out how to install it. I think it wants me to build it from the source but there doesn’t seem to be a guide on how to do that.
It says that the guest is supposed to have some special software
That sounds like virtio-win. I usually use the iso and mount it from virt-manager, but if the internet is working then I guess you can download the exe.
I’m assuming that I’m supposed to download “libvirtd”
Just searched it up, something like this should work: sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon
Sorry I don’t have too much experience with gnome boxes either, I mostly use virt-manager.
So I tried virt-manager but it’s giving me an error message about not being able to connect to "libvirt qemu:///system" and it wont let me install a virtual machine. I’m assuming that I’m supposed to download “libvirtd”, but I can’t figure out how to install it. I think it wants me to build it from the source but there doesn’t seem to be a guide on how to do that.
As far as video types are concerned, Linux’s multimedia codec support is much wider & more flexible than Windows via Windows Media Player. The app Celluloid for Linux (based on MPV) supports everything under the sun
I don’t think every distro comes with this. How is it a positive in that case? I could install VLC on just about everything (including Windows) and have a similar experience.
VLC isn’t a native Windows app, as it isn’t a native Linux app. Celluloid uses native styling on GNOME systems & is super easy to install with any package manager GUI that supports Flatpak. Installing apps on Linux is always easier by a long shot compared to Windows, especially with Flatpak.
I don’t know what is default on most distros, but it is so easy to change in this case that it is hard to even consider the default media player relevant compared to on Windows where there are fewer options for apps like VLC that actually give you a native experience
I generally just avoid it, otherwise I use it on windows, I still use dual boot with windows and Linux, will probably stop after w10 stops getting security updates since I don’t really care all that much about windows specific stuff
There are numerous ways to deal with it, depending on the specific application and use-case. For some, there’s an open-source alternative that, while not 100% similar in every aspect imaginable, does offer basically the same functionality (LibreOffice for MS Office Suite, Thunderbird for various email clients, Firefox or just Chromium for Google Chrome). For others, you can use an emulator (WINE, for example). For games specifically, Steam offers an emulator that works for most games (Proton); in fact, all the games I’ve tried worked. Then, there’s the very last option, which is using a virtual Windows machine within Linux. I mention it last because I honestly haven’t found many cases where I absolutely needed to do this, and because the set-up is rather “involved”, shall we say. But if you’re using Adobe Suite stuff then, yeah, you basically got no choice there.
Would you mind listing some of the essential programs that you use so we can get a better idea what your workflow is?
Get the list of programs you commonly use and figure out if they’re on Linux or have alternatives. Libreoffice, VLC and Okular are good for your case. If you find it limiting and need MS features then browser Office 365 is very good.
The best option would be to buy a used laptop and install Linux, Linux works great on old hardware so you could find something 3-7y old and it’ll run very well.
If you’re coming from Apple try anything with Gnome that’s popular (Ubuntu, Fedora).
If you’re coming from windows try anything that uses KDE (Kubuntu, Fedora w KDE, KDE neon).
If you don’t tinker with things under the hood generally you’ll have a painless polished experience.
Being able to get a modern OS that runs smoothly on a 200$ used laptop is the major selling point for you, rest is extra.
We use browser office 365 at work. It’s on a Windows computer. I gotta say it sucks ass if your stuff doesn’t all live in an associated onedrive. We have a shared drive that common files live in and accessing them from the browser office is a mess.
All modern distros let you install them all and just select which one you wish to use from the login screen. You don’t need NixOS or anything specifically to do this, in fact it’s easier on other distros because usually nothing more than installing the packages is required, no config editing, rebuilding or even rebooting.
If that’s happening on your distro then try any of the modern big names and it’ll be fine. Left over cruft being a problem beyond some extra disk space usage is a thing of the past.
The cost to try it is time. Take a laptop you can afford to wipe, install Linux Mint Cinnamon, and just see how you like it.
But in your specific use-case, I do not expect this is a good idea. You are not going to save money on any scale that matters to a law firm. You can run LibreOffice on Windows just fine, and if it doesn’t work out, you can rent Office 365 (Dollars A Year). You’re not in a profession where FOSS tools like Blender and GIMP might displace obscenely-expensive industry standards.
What free-as-in-speech software might mean to you is control. Windows 10 does some dumb shit. Windows 11 is even worse and getting worse… er. Even more worse? Even dumber. Linux distros and open-source programs are made by the kind of ultranerds who said “absolutely not” and are limited to problems entirely of our own creation.
Is Online Office 365 good enough for you? Or, is an ‘almost fully compatible’ word processor enough?
The features are there, but it’s a whole new interface to learn, and if you export to a word document, the document produced may look wonky when viewed in word. OTOH, whatever PDFs you produce, those will look right. And if Online Office 365 is enough, that’s great, because you won’t have to worry about that.
You’ll need to establish a workflow, and others in your office will need to use (and get used to) the same workflow.
It’s not a small leap for an office to take. I love Linux, but check out that it has what you need before you fully commit. Give it a try by dual-booting or by installing it on a secondary system.
depending on the type most NVR’s are just custom linux builds, so VLC has few issues. I have yet to find an NVR video I could not run on my box, but my sample size is not huge, and its not corporate surveillance level gear im testing with
My guess is that somebody has some important “Windows” application that they need to run that is calling into Cygwin. That means that the proper way to run it on Linux is almost certainly just to port it from Cygwin to Linux native. How do you do this though if somebody else wrote the code?
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