A VM can be installed that uses a GUI (Graphical User Interface), such as what Windows uses by default.  If one is continuing the process of building a software development system that allows for Python programming, it might be better to start with a non-GUI virtual server environment.

If running VB within a Windows environment, where one could already be programming in Python, it’s likely having a Linux VM would be most helpful.  The question then would be:  which distribution of Linux to use?  This can be complicated to answer, but it might be helpful to decide which family of distributions to use.

If RedHat, it might be best to go with AlmaLinux, which comes out of RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux).  Ahead of RHEL is RedHat’s Fedora, which is more responsive to the community, but precedes the RHEL team’s security review and approvals.  The latest AlmaLinux can be downloaded from here:  almalinux.org/get-almalinux

The rest of this series is going to follow along with setting up a non-GUI version of AlmaLinux.  This is mainly to get the reader used to how most Linux servers are built, which may aid them in gaining development operations experience.  This isn’t to say most servers are built with Alma, but rather that many are built as non-GUI, often RedHat based.  Even with RedHat, once the system is installed, the experience gained will still be useful with other distributions — they’re all still just Linux.

Fedora can be downloaded from here:  fedoraproject.org/server/download.  (My only caution here is that I don’t have a lot of experience with Fedora, so can’t do much to guide the setup process.)

There’s also Ubuntu, which has a great installation process that can be setup anywhere (including obscure, and assumed obsolete laptops):  ubuntu.com/download/desktop.  (Same caution here as Fedora, though…)

The next section will be on installing an AlmaLinux server VM.  (Others may be added as time permits.)