VirtualBox Vs Wine - Process

**itrogers** · March 8th, 2013

I definitely understand the difference between the two, however, what would be a good process to decide what program to run where? Should the first priority be Wine and if that doesn't work use a Virtual Machine?

I want to completely switch over but to Ubuntu but there are a few things I will need: Adobe CS6 / MS Office '13 / and EVE Online (game).

Just looking for any insight and experience from other users. What is the best possible scenario for running a windows program in Ubuntu?

**DuckHook** · March 8th, 2013

I have both running on my boxes and have done so for years. There really is no rule here. It's a matter of personal preference. You will definitely need the VM for CS6 and MSO13. Don't know enough about EVE Online to give any advice. Check with the WINE apps database to determine compatibility. Some people will only run "Platinum" compatibility apps because they don't want to tweak anything at all.

My preference is to run as much in WINE as possible before resorting to Win VMs. The nature of VMs make them much inferior in performance to native apps running on bare metal, and I just prefer to not have to fire up the VM unless absolutely necessary. Others on these forums swear by their VMs and run WINE as little as possible.

Between instability/limitations running in WINE and big performance hit running in a VM, it will be up to you to decide which order you prefer them in.

**itrogers** · March 8th, 2013

Thanks for giving a little insight DuckHook.

My preference is to run as much in WINE as possible before resorting to Win VMs. The nature of VMs make them much inferior in performance to native apps running on bare metal, and I just prefer to not have to fire up the VM unless absolutely necessary. Others on these forums swear by their VMs and run WINE as little as possible.

This makes sense and I can see where the tradeoff really is. Like you, I think I'll try it in Wine before firing up the VM (which will be necessary for my setup anyhow). Thanks again.

**Bucky Ball** · March 8th, 2013

As mentioned, check WineHQ for compatibility. Wine may be a waste of time and a VM your only solution but if you are going to/needing to use your Win apps a lot I'd probably stick with Windows and dual-boot.

http://appdb.winehq.org/

Ubuntu isn't and will never be a drop in replacement for Win, with or without Wine.

**itrogers** · March 8th, 2013

Originally Posted by Bucky Ball

As mentioned, check WineHQ for compatibility. Wine may be a waste of time and a VM your only solution but if you are going to/needing to use your Win apps a lot I'd probably stick with Windows and dual-boot.

http://appdb.winehq.org/

Ubuntu isn't and will never be a drop in replacement for Win, with or without Wine.

Great point. Perhaps I should first make Ubuntu my main OS rather than only and slowly switch if at ever all possible.

**Bucky Ball** · March 9th, 2013

Sounds like a plan.

See what you can and can't do in Ubuntu and play around a bit. Also look for Linux alternatives to Win apps and see what you can come up with. Depending on what features you use in Office you might find OpenOffice or LibreOffice will do just as well.

Good luck with it and enjoy the learning curve.

**PJs Ronin** · March 9th, 2013

fwiw, I tried Wine a couple of years ago after making a resolution to switch totally to Ubuntu but found that there were some 'graphics problems'... probably more due to my own lack of expertise than anything else. That led me to Virtualbox and I was blown away at how easy it was to get my Windows requirements up and running. (In my case I needed Windows for a particular game, but linked to a PostgreSQL database on the Ubuntu side.)

Haven't looked back. I now use the VMs for my games, testing new releases of Ubuntu b4 I migrate to the production side, and testing other Linux distros. And all of this is neatly wrapped up in VMs that I regularly backup so that crashes/viruses are no longer a prob; reload, rinse, dry and away we go again.

**foxmulder881** · March 10th, 2013

Whether it's Windows, Linux or Mac OS. I just use and recommend others to use whatever OS suits your needs.

**itrogers** · March 11th, 2013

Originally Posted by PJs Ronin

fwiw, I tried Wine a couple of years ago after making a resolution to switch totally to Ubuntu but found that there were some 'graphics problems'... probably more due to my own lack of expertise than anything else. That led me to Virtualbox and I was blown away at how easy it was to get my Windows requirements up and running. (In my case I needed Windows for a particular game, but linked to a PostgreSQL database on the Ubuntu side.)

Haven't looked back. I now use the VMs for my games, testing new releases of Ubuntu b4 I migrate to the production side, and testing other Linux distros. And all of this is neatly wrapped up in VMs that I regularly backup so that crashes/viruses are no longer a prob; reload, rinse, dry and away we go again.

Would love to hear more about this if you can or at least provide some links on some setup guides? Sounds very technical but it sounds like it was well worth it?

**Bucky Ball** · March 11th, 2013

Virtualbox is in the repositories so just install via Synaptics or Software Centre, launch, install Windows as a virtual machine inside your Linux host. That's it.

One thing to remember is that you need to allocate some RAM to each install so if you have 1Gb you probably won't get far as that would be 512Mb for each. Sluggish.

Do a search for Virtualbox and related how-tos. There's stacks of info out there. Good luck.