Running Multiple Linux Distributions

Tagged with cinnamon, laptop computer, linux, mini pc, raspberry pi, virtualbox on February 7, 2025

Running multiple Linux distributions on separate computers is easy. It isn’t as easy to run multiple distributions on one computer. This wasn’t something I didn’t even consider when I didn’t have much disk space available. Times have definitely changed for the better when it comes to computer hardware.

Since the time I wrote my previous article, “Linux Distributions Based on Arch Linux”, I’ve tested more distributions and more desktop environments than I care to remember. Four days may not seem like it would be long enough, but you have to understand I’m retired. Sometimes I have nothing else to occupy my time.

I’m not a gamer, and I’m not a software developer, and I can only watch so many videos. I don’t even gamble, unless you consider phone applications that don’t even use real money. There are days when I have hours of nothing to do except find even better ways to kill time.

Multiple Ways to Run Multiple Linux Distributions

I own three computers, this laptop computer, a mini PC, and a Raspberry Pi 400. I use the same desktop environment on each of them, Cinnamon. After days of testing distributions and desktop environments, I still have no desire to use any other desktop environment. I don’t need or want eye candy. The Cinnamon desktop environment looks great when it’s themed correctly and when the right applets and desklets are used.

When I want to run multiple Linux distributions on any single computer, I can do it one or more of four ways:

• Side-by-side with the current installation
• From an external solid-state-drive
• In a container using Distrobox
• In a virtual machine

A side-by-side installation uses the same resources, as does an external solid-state drive installation. The external installation will probably be slower, even with a serial bus higher than USB 3.0. Although I have experience with the others, I prefer virtual machines because they’re easier for me to create and remove.

I’ve been using VirtualBox for years to test the changes I made to whatever Linux distribution I happened to be using at the time. I used to keep Windows in a virtual machine, even though I never used it for anything. Even after all my testing, I no longer have any virtual machines in place.

Virtual Machines and VirtualBox

I don’t have a lot of experience with other virtual machine software, but I like some things I can do with VirtualBox. Saving a machine in a running state is one of them. Multiple snapshots is another. As enticing as it may seem (to me), I don’t want to run any virtual machine for more than the amount of time it takes to test something.

I envy people with a lot more going on. Someone who creates podcasts and YouTube videos would probably need to be able to save everything multiple times before the product is finished. I was like that years ago, but I didn’t have the resources I have today. At one time, I had to run two computers simultaneously to do what I can easily do with one today.

Image by Oracle Corporation, GPLv2, via Wikimedia Commons