Hey Guys,
I'm hoping on getting a new laptop soon for programming, I have been coding on my phone and tablet and I have really gotten used to the termux terminal, since android is basically Linux, termux is just like the Linux terminal and its sweet af
Unfortunately, windows cmd kind of sucks and I'm not sure if I really want to be using it,
Mac OSX bash terminal is very similar to the Linux terminal and I would really love to use that if not that a good macbook might be a little bit above my budget (and I'm not really an apple person, I just like the Terminal that's all)

The cheapest alternative would be install a Linux distro like MintOS or Ubuntu,
I don't know if it's going to be a safe process or not,
Can I have both windows and Linux installed so I can switch between OSes,
Or should I make my Laptop Linux Only, and will I regret the latter decision

I would really be relieved if there was a better way to use Linux without uninstalling windows or installing it alongside Windows, maybe if I could boot it from a flash drive or use it Virtually while on windows

Thanks in advance for your answers

You can run linux on a virtual machine, that way you can always use either windows or linux without having to uninstall any. Check YouTube on how to do that.

You can run run various Linux distros directly on your window machine without using VM. Microsoft has introduced windows subsystems for Linux known as wsl. When you install it,ensure it is wsl2. You will also enable virtualization on your Windows. After installing and enabling wsl version 2 you now install as many Linux distributions as you want. You can do anything you want on it. It is fully featured. I develop apps with it. I use docker on it. I use ansible on it. Do a Google search for Windows subsystem for Linux (wsl) or watch youtube video in it

I have been running Linux only for more that 7 years now and I don't regret it.

Wsl2 is what you need....I am currently running docker on WSL: Ubuntu-20.04 on my windows PC.


You must be running Windows 10 version 2004 and higher (Build 19041 and higher) or Windows 11.


For more info

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install