Question

should I spin up a VM of Linux to practice on or should I install cygwin?

Answer 1

I would recommend spinning up a VM.

Answer 2

Cygwin will not give you a full Linux environment so out if the 2 options a cm would be better. Better yet would be to create a bootable usb disk with a Linux distribution of your choice and practice in a live environment

Answer 3

With a live disk my work wont save though. I'd like to take this in small bits so if i put an hour in I don't want to lose it.

Answer 4

I would us a VM. With a VM, you can create many different VM. For instance, you can have a VM for RedHat and Redhat's family such as CentOS 7 and Fedora. Also, you can have a VM for the Debian and Debian's family such as Mint and Ubuntu. With VMs, you can create many different VMs, which host many different Linux operating systems all from one hard drive.

By creating different VMs, you will be able to easily learn how each major distro operate. For instance, you will be able to easily learn CentOS and Fedora's YUM package management system and on Debian and Ubuntu, you will be able to learn apt package management system. Not only will it be easier to learn different major Linux distros, it will be easier to change in and out of the different systems as you learn. If you want to learn about Linux, I would most definitely go with VMs. On that note, to truly see how well Linux performs on your computer, I would recommend dual booting or installing Linux on another hard drive. Installing Linux on a hard drive of its own is the best way to run Linux imho.

Answer 5

I have both. If I want to run multiple processes while doing basic linux-type things on the command line I use cygwin. If I want the full linux-feel though, I use VMware and turn off other processes. That runs quite slow on my computer though, so it depends what you want to do.
It's also harder to customize the packages you need with cygwin, too. If I need a package in ubuntu I just sudo apt-get it. If I need a package in cygwin I have to run the setup again and hunt for it, and it's more of a pain to keep track of updates.

Answer 6

Depends on what you want to practice.