What's a good way to run a virtual copy of Ubuntu on Windows 7?

Question

I have a mathematical program that runs on 64 bit Ubuntu. I need to run it on my Windows 7 workstation, preferably without having to install Ubuntu instead of Windows, because this is a short term need. Is there a way I could run 64-bit Ubuntu as a virtual machine on my Windows 7 box?

Solution 1

You can download VirtualBox to run a virtual copy of Ubuntu.

Download a disk image of the Ubuntu 64-bit install CD here. Then open VirtualBox and create a new machine with the disk image as the start up disk.

I use this to run Ubuntu on Windows 7 every day and it works very well.

Solution 2

You can use VirtualBox and if you really just want Ubuntu for the software i.e. rather than for the whole Unity interface based experience, you might consider Lubuntu instead.

http://lubuntu.net/

Lubuntu is simply the official LXDE version of Ubuntu and while its spartan blue/grey looks may not win any beauty contests, it does work a lot better than other forms of Ubuntu in VirtualBox.

LXDE is a desktop environment designed for less capable hardware and therefore it is quite suited to virtualisation software, which typically isn't able to use your hardware as efficiently as a bare metal installation.

Comments

[Takkat]

Just adding this: if your CPU can do this (it likely does) you will be able to run 64-bit Ubuntu in a Virtual Box even when your Windows 7 host is 32-bit only.

[Eliah Kagan]

No, that is a common misconception about Cygwin. Cygwin does not (ever) run Linux executables. As is prominently stated on the Cygwin home page, "Cygwin is not... a way to run native Linux apps on Windows. You must rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows." (emphasis in original) Cygwin is not a Linux emulator. Consequently, this really does not answer the question that was asked--Cygwin does not facilitate running Ubuntu or any other GNU/Linux distribution (or any non-Windows OS) on Windows.

[J86]

Are there alternatives to VirtualBox for Windows users who want to run Ubuntu inside a VM? VirtualBox doesn't currently support Windows 10 :(

[Kris Harper]

I don't know of any that are free and as fully featured. VMWare is excellent, but expensive. Have you tried running VirtualBox on Windows 10? I know the site says it's unsupported, but it might still work.