[CLOSED] Dual Boot 12.10 or migrate OEM Windows 8 to a VM on same laptop in Linux?

[teastman]

Hi Folks
(Moved by OP)

Wasn't sure if this goes in "Installation" or "Software Support". If it needs to move please do so.

So I bought a new Acer Aspire V5 this weekend with Windows 8 pre-loaded for the house.
Abbreviated specs;
Acer Notebook 15.6 inch
8 GB RAM -
750 GB disk -
Core i5 1.7 GHz

So after reading up on the issues with UEFI and enabling/disabling Secure Boot I'm wondering which is the most bombproof way to approach this?
If the Dual Boot scenario with Kubuntu 12.10 and Windows 8 /UEFI does not behave (as it has in the past with BIOS and Grub Loader on the MBR) can I do a migration of this OEM installed Windows 8 to a VM in Kubuntu on the same laptop??

In other words, nuke-n-pave the existing OEM Windows 8 hard drive, install Kubuntu 12.10 on clean HDD, then migrate that OEM Windows 8 image to a VM running on 12.10.

Best flavor of Virtual Machine to do this? VirtualBox? VMware Player?

Will a P2V converter take the existing hardware into consideration which the Windows 8 OEM was installed on and mimic this environment in Linux (VBox / VMWare)?

The Windows 8 environment would need access to DVD drives and USB ports, internet, etc.

Thanks for all thoughts and musings!
tje

[Spadge]

Well, I guess it depends what you want to use Windows 8 for.

I dual boot Windows 7 and Kubuntu because I use Windows 7 for gaming, and my games need every ounce of performance my desktop machine has.

I have a Ubuntu server with vmware player on it that I run XP in to host the game servers I play on, as a dedicated server is much much lighter on resources.

[teastman]

May have answered part of my question. Seems the VMWare Converter doesn't like EFI hardware.

[teastman]

For lack of a viable fix for doing a P2V of a UEFI system with GPT disk I am going to call this query closed. It seems that NO-one in the virtual vendor houses has (yet) support on the fly for creating a virtual image of a disk configured as GPT. This completely baffles me.