I have needs of multiple operating systems on one machine and am looking for advice on the best way to organize this.

Here are my needs:

1. A UNIX-based OS for general purpose use and for programming (either Linux or Hackintosh)
2. An OS for gaming, virtual reality, and virtual reality development (presumably Windows is optimal)
3. An OS to run Photoshop, Ableton, and other design/art software (Mac OS preferred, but Windows is an option)

I'd prefer to avoid dual booting so my top choices right now as far as I can tell are either Hackintosh on the base system and a Windows VM for gaming/VR, or Linux on the base system and a Windows VM for gaming/VR. I could in theory have two separate VMs and run all 3 operating systems but I think that's overboard.

However, I have some qualms about Hackintosh's stability and hardware compatibility, as e.g. scrolling behaves really weird with a normal mouse. However, if I went Linux and Windows VM that means I'd have to run Photoshop and Ableton in the Windows VM which is suboptimal as I want to save the VM for only gaming/VR.

Any advice or alternative solutions are appreciated.

buy multiple drives and select boot device on start up, buy more then one pc
otherwise u kinda got it covered

Thanks for the response.

I would like to try to avoid having to restart my PC to change operating systems, which is why I am leaning towards running VMs.

Having a Macbook Pro for the programming + art stuff and a gaming PC for gaming/VR is one option I'm considering, but fairly pricey and has some drawbacks in terms of setting up using the same monitors for each system.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Nov 11 2016 11:46pm