Laptop preparation

I will just cover creating the Ubuntu Linux virtual machine under VirtualBox, since that is my setup. You can find instructions for installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS without VirtualBox at https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-install-ubuntu-desktop#0:

1. Download and install VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Pick the version that matches your computer setup (Windows).
2. Download the Ubuntu system image from https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. It will be an .iso file that is quite large (almost 2 GB). An .iso is a disk image file that is a byte-for-byte copy of another filesystem.
3. Open VirtualBox and select New.
4. Make up a descriptive name for this virtual machine and select Linux and Ubuntu (64-bit) in the Type and Version fields. Select Next.
5. Set a Base Memory size. I picked 3 GB.
6. Select a size for your virtual machine partition. I made a 40 GB virtual drive.
7. Click Next.
8. Select Start (green arrow) and pick your Media Source as the .iso we downloaded in Step 2.
9. Finish the installation by following the prompts.
10. Restart the virtual machine once you are finished.