Comparing Windows & Linux, Virtualized

date: 2023-01-13

Practical Proxmox

This week I've gained a bit of experience with Proxmox Virtual Environment. I'm pleased with what I've been able to do so far, but I know it is only scratching the surface.

In my case, "practical" is quite different from what most people would think of what using Proxmox. Proxmox is mostly used for hosting server type services, such as web apps that do a particular thing.

I've wanted to have any easy way to make videos for my customers showing how to do things in Windows. I don't use Windows as my own operating system, so it was awkward to try to use a physical Windows machine to make a video on (though I certainly have done that in the past).

With Proxmox and SPICE I can have more than one operating system with a graphical user interface up and easily switch between them using the Cinnamon "workspaces" feature.

Ctrl + Alt + Right to move to the workspace to the right and Ctrl + Alt + Left arrow to move to the workspace on the left. Have a SPICE virt-viewer open on two or more workspaces "full screened" and it is a smooth tool for making videos comparing two different systems.

Show and Tell

Instead of just writing about it, here's the video that I made explaining and showing with examples what I'm wanting to do.

Video: Using a Virtual Environment to compare Windows to Linux

I publish videos using a self-hosted peertube server.

Planning a series

I plan on doing a series of videos comparing how to do particular tasks in Windows 10 and Linux Mint Debian Edition. The target audience of these videos would be customers of my local computer repair and sales business. I explain a bit about why in the video.

When someone asks me how to do a particular thing in Windows, I may already have published a video showing that and also how to do it in Linux (Cinnamon DE). I can then just send them a link of the video. It would save me time, improve professionalism because I prepared for those questions ahead of time and let people know that there are good alternatives to Windows.

tags: #proxmox #windows #linux