Ubuntu 14.04 in a Generation 2 VM

Recently, Canonical released Ubuntu 14.04.  This is the first Linux release to support running inside of a Generation 2 virtual machine.  To get this working in your environment, you need to have Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 installed.  Then you need to download an installation ISO from https://www.ubuntu.com/download.

You can download the Desktop or Server versions of 14.04, just make sure that you get the 64-bit versions.

Once you have done this – create a new Generation 2 virtual machine and configure it the way you want it.  Before you start the installation you will need to go into the virtual machine settings, change to the Firmware settings page and uncheck Enable Secure Boot.

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You can then boot from the ISO image and select to Install Ubuntu.

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The installation process is quite simple, and there are no tricks / special options to get it running well under Hyper-V.  I even noticed that dynamic memory was active during the installation process!

Soon you will be done - and you will have an Ubuntu Generation 2 virtual machine, with all the cool features (like dynamic memory, online backup and more) already enabled and ready to go:

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Cheers,
Ben