Professional C# .NET developer, React and TypeScript hobbyist, proud Linux user, Godot enthusiast!
Iirc I had a Windows 7 (maybe 8 or 10) Home OEM, original (not cracked), but it still worked. Perhaps if I had kept using it for long periods in the VM it would have started complaining? Anyways I booted it baremetal from time to time, so maybe that’s why it kept working.
That would definitely be a technical challenge, but also it’s absolutely possible.
I used to do dual-boot Windows + Linux and I could run the Linux installation from a VM in Windows as well as the Windows installation from a VM in Linux.
When rebooting between metal and VM, Windows would always spend a few minutes “doing things” before continuing to boot, but it worked.
Linux would not even fret. It would just boot normally without any complaints.
I don’t remember exactly which distro I had at the time, but probably it was Linux Mint.
If you don’t want proprietary drivers the choice is quite straightforward: AMD. The official drivers are open source.
As for my experience, I’ve had absolutely no problems in the last few years with AMD, but I have to admit that I have always been using an iGPU, which has always been good enough for my needs.
I used to have problems with Nvidia proprietary drivers, but that was at least a couple years ago, things might have changed. I’ve never had issues with the free unofficial drivers, besides worse performance.
FYI this has already been a thing for a long while thanks to an open source third-party implementation, and also works on Windows 10. I use it all the time, it’s very similar to Linux’s and I’ve never had any issues so far. Not sure if Microsoft’s official solution will be any different/better.
Yeah, I realize that and that’s a nuisance for a videogame… If the game is small enough, OP might be able to give it a virtual GPU with VirtualBox, I did it in the past to play with friends on a single computer. I don’t know if the usual KVM-based VMs support it as well.
Keep in mind that non-hardenized containers only protect you from bugs, they don’t protect you from sophisticated malware. If you suspect the software you are trying to run might be a virus, don’t run it, or run it in a virtual machine.
I would recommend using containers only if you absolutely understand how to make them secure AND you have no reason to suspect the software you are running might contain nefarious code. In any other case use a virtual machine.
For me it was the same drive. I remember I had to generate a special file to convince VirtualBox to use the physical partition as if it was part of a different drive. I don’t remember the details. Quite hacky perhaps, but it worked.