In a virtual machine

Trindle runs in a virtual machine, and it is a sensible way to look round before you write a USB stick. But a new machine in these programs can start with little memory, one processor and no 3D graphics, and on a machine like that Windows, videos and web pages feel slower than on a real computer. What you would be judging is the virtual machine, not the desktop.

Setting the machine up properly helps. The desktop itself works without help from a graphics card: on a machine with no graphics chip at all the processor does the drawing, and windows simply appear and go, without gliding in or shrinking away. The login screen there has a Light drawing switch, on to begin with.

Download the image: coming soon Putting it on a real computer

What to give it

Memory8 GB if the computer has it to spare, as in the steps below.

Processors4, as in the steps below.

Graphics3D acceleration on, and 128 MB of video memory. This is the setting that matters most.

DiskAt least 20 GB, which the installer needs.

FirmwareUEFI. The installer can also set up an older BIOS start-up, but not on an encrypted disk.

Even set up well, a virtual machine is slower than the computer it runs on. Everything drawn on the screen goes through another layer of software first. Judge how Trindle looks and how it works in a virtual machine, by all means. Judge how fast it is from a USB stick on the real computer, which costs you nothing. Trindle says as much itself when it finds it is in a virtual machine, and leaves out its animations when there are no 3D graphics to draw them with.

The setting that matters

Graphics. Everything else is memory and patience.

Boxes, or Virtual Machine Manager

On Linux: the driver it needs is already in Trindle, so nothing has to be installed inside the machine for acceleration to work.

In Virtual Machine Manager, before you start it: Memory 8192, CPUs 4, and under Video set the model to Virtio and tick 3D acceleration. Under Display Spice, tick OpenGL. Choose UEFI as the firmware on the last page before it is created; it cannot be changed afterwards.

Boxes has fewer knobs: set memory and disk in its settings, and it turns acceleration on by itself when the computer it is running on can do it.

QEMU, by hand

If you would rather type it. This is the whole of it, with the image as a disc in the drive:

qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -enable-kvm -m 8192 -smp 4 \
  -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd \
  -device virtio-vga-gl \
  -display gtk,gl=on \
  -cdrom IMAGE.iso

-enable-kvm is what makes it a virtual machine rather than an imitation of one, and virtio-vga-gl with gl=on is the graphics. Leave either out and it will be slow however much memory you give it.

VirtualBox

On Windows, macOS or Linux. Whether the tick box below gives real 3D drawing depends on VirtualBox and its version, so check what Trindle says.

System, Motherboard: tick Enable EFI, memory 8192. System, Processor: 4. Display, Screen: graphics controller VMSVGA, video memory 128 MB, tick Enable 3D Acceleration.

Trindle tells you in its first window whether it found 3D graphics. If it did not, the processor draws everything, and windows appear and go without moving. That works, but it is not what the computer would do.

If it still feels slow

Three things, in this order.

Is acceleration really on?Trindle says when it finds no 3D graphics: its first window on the image and the note after installing both tell you, and the advice there is to turn on 3D acceleration in the virtual machine’s display settings.
How much memory did it actually get?Not what you meant to give it. Look at what the program shows for the running machine.
Is the host busy?A virtual machine gets what is left over. Close what you are not using on the real computer before you decide the desktop is slow.

What a virtual machine cannot show you

Some of it has to be a real computer.

How fast it is

Windows moving, menus opening, a video playing. All of it goes through another layer before it reaches your eyes.

The machine itself

Battery, sleeping and waking, the lid, screen brightness, Wi-Fi, a fingerprint reader, a printer. A virtual machine has none of them, or a pretend one.

Installing

You can install into a virtual machine and it works. What it will not tell you is whether this computer’s own disk, firmware and graphics are happy, which is the part worth knowing.

When you are ready: putting it on a computer