I recently ran into a problem. I purchased a cool laser engraver/cutting machine, but the software to run it only works in Windows and I didn’t have any available Windows boxes within cable distance.

Possible solutions:

  1. Purchase another cheap Windows laptop, but Amazon takes 7 days to deliver the 2 day items and I wanted solve this today, plus that seems wasteful.
  2. Reinstall my Framework laptop with Windows 10, but sadness.
  3. Virtualize Windows 10 on my Framework laptop?

I thought, USB passthrough is an advanced virtualization function 5 years ago, maybe it’s standard today? The answer to that question is yes and more.

Introducing GNOME Boxes the amazing virtualization system on Ubuntu and other distros running GNOME or capable of deploying GNOME libraries. Using GNOME Boxes I was able to load Windows 10 in a few minutes, it even had the capability to setup my first user and complete most of the setup headless!

Boxes

Install on Ubuntu 22

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-boxes