Not really sure how dualbooting or vms work at their core. I’m kind of over windows and want to swap, always liked the customizability aspect and have been using Linux more and more for self hosting purposes. Was wondering if I setup linux on my external ssd using a vm if I could change it from vm to a dualboot drive after I’m done setting it up. That way I could setitup and swap to it while keepign my original ssd with my windows install,. and not have to deal with dualbooting and going back and forth while setting up?
Can I make a vm of my current windows machine backup and run that in a linux setup?
If you go with NixOS or guix, both of which are declaratively configured, you can swap 99.9% seamlessly. I run the same NixOS config on 2 machine and a VM. Only thing I had to modify between them are some driver specific settings, but those are easy to isolate.
NixOS and Guix are both very beginner-unfriendly. If you’re not very comfortable with Linux and its command line, I’d recommend against using them for personal systems.