I am developing a statistical application on a Windows machine. I have never worked for any length of time under any other OS. I would like to test my programs under some flavor of Linux for the convenience of potential users. If I install, say, Ubuntu, under VirtualBox on my Windows machine, can programs operating under Windows and programs under Ubuntu access the same files, if it is not at the same time? Some of my test files are 30 GB or more, and I'd rather not duplicate them. If so, do I need to do anything special to allow this?
Suppose that I also have a database server (PostgreSQL) operating under its own user account on this same machine. Can an OBDC driver or some other interface connected to my program running under Linux on the VM issue queries to the DB running under Windows? Again, is there anything special I need to know to make this work?