So besides VM ware and Virtual Box are there any open source VMs ?
I am looking to play around with Linux on my Main laptop since my netbook has keyboard issues.
QEMU is built in to a lot of Linux kernels so it is in my opinion better than a add-in like Virtual Box....
I've been running a QEMU/KVM with hardware pass through for over a year, works great.
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What version of linux are you running, and was it hard to install along with configure the software??
Started with Fedora 22 now running Fedora 23, installing it was nothing as it's built into the kernel (there are a few packages you would need but it will grab them when updated), but that was the easy part, figuring out the hardware pass through was the tougher part. If you just wanted to run a VM without hardware pass through it's very straight forward and easy to accomplish but then Virtual Box is also after it is installed.
As to configuration, I did a lot of testing of Virtual box on Ubuntu and Mint, I also tested on OpenSuse before moving to Fedora and QEMU, then once on Fedora it took me 6 attempts to get a successful KVM with hardware pass through, I was able to build a VM that would run Windows on the first try but that wasn't what I was after.....lol
It all depends on what your trying to accomplish in your guest OS, I wanted to play games and run Adobe products so I had to have the pass through, but if you are seeking just running Windows and native apps like office or really any software that doesn't require direct hardware access it's pretty simple.
If you have a old computer laying around choose your Linux version and give Virtual Box a try, it will give you the basics of what your doing, then you can go into QEMU with a little understand of what is necessary of the hypervisor and what your goals are.
Linux is all over VM's. QEMU/ KVM and others. Pass through GPU's all linux
Virtualbox is the easy one, you have an Easy Web interface for it. It's on GitHub or SourceForge I believe.
You can run Xen, but I've heard you need some figgeling to get it to work. You can give proxmox an try if you have an dedicated machine. Wendell made an video abount Proxmox.
And above all QEMU, nice software! But I'm still for my envoirment manly in Hyper-V because work and school... Next iterasion of my home network maybe...
See the license column.
After you have explained it, it doesn't seem that tough of a undertaking from what I have read before in the past until now. I like Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora so it's hard to choose which one I want to use as my main OS. So after the attempts to install KVM in Fedora 23, was that main problem that you encountered with pass through??
if you have a computer to dedicate as a vm host, ProxMox is what I use for all my vm needs.
Everything is ran in a web browser and it is free with an optional subscription.
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Naw....my biggest issue with Fedora 23 was that I had everything working great in 22, but got the idea that it would be worth the effort to upgrade (newer kernel, extended support for QEMU....yada yada) so I upgraded and my KVM stopped working, it was a simple fix since I had a snap-shot of the good working configuration with Win 7 upgraded to the point that I need "never 10" to keep the nagging away...lol But I had to do a few tweaks to QEMU since it was a newer version basically take my good snap-shot and input that into QEMU, it worked fine after that and I'm really not sure what was it's problem keeping the old KVM from loading.
But it really wasn't a big deal, I just freaked out for about 30 min thinking that I was going to have to start from scratch again and saying I'm never upgrading again...ever!....lol (but I will when 24 is out of beta)
The problems I had with the pass through were related to me and nothing to do with the OS, there are too many guides, and too many opinions, then there are several different ways to do a hardware pass through, all of it was confusing at first, now I could do it with ease because I understand what is required and going on behind the curtain.
I would like to run my Windows 10 installation from inside a virtual environment just in case I need to make a snapshot
you never know when they will push an update that completely screws up my install
it would make me feel much better knowing that I wouldn't have to do almost zero work to reload last week's state of working operating system
and not have to log back into all of my miscellaneous accounts
and reinstall all of my miscellaneous programs
Windows 10 is mainly for video gaming in my usage case so it is important that I am able to pass through my graphics card
I just lack any non windows os experience. ..
people over on the linus tech forum are all basically saying go use unRAID
But apparently that cost like 40 bucks
I am looking to learn all I make the switch to linux. I am going to stick with windows as my main log in and vm linux. I was digging around youtube and found a pretty decent tutorial for linux and this guy has a bunch of videos. I watched about 5 so far. Heavy terminal learning that isn't to overbearing. Learning how to move around the directories. Making, reading, moving, deleting, files and directories. Its pretty fun, and I am a horrible at typing.
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Well you got QEMU which virtualizes hardware. KVM is a kernel hypervisor which allows access to hardware - typically used in conjunction with QEMU. Then you have XEN which tries to be both (don't quote me on that).
Exactly, it's a great function to have and worked as expected, my biggest fear wasn't that I'd have to reconfigure the pass through, it was the age old having to reinstall windows and all the crap that was installed in it, ie games and programs, but it just worked and I didn't loose anything...which reminds me I've installed a few games from the Steam sale I need to do another snap-shot. :)
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Im pretty sure unraid like systems will become a thing and people will be able to roll back there OS....It's all the GFX card nonsense holding us back.
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I would really like to do this but I have zero other than Windows skills
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There is Xen which is what Citrix uses as their base. So learning it has real world money earning potential. It is open source as well.
I need some tutorials
And help...
Short story......
A little over a year ago I wanted to move off of Windows as my daily driver, I knew I wanted to move to Linux but needed the ability to run my Windows game library along with Adobe design software (photoshop and illustrator) that was my goal finding a way to do both. I thought about dual booting but decided that wasn't what I wanted, so I started looking at options and I came across hardware pass through, it seemed like voodoo and something that wouldn't be stable or that robust. The more I researched the more I became convinced that was what I wanted to do.
I was a novice Linux user and other than a Linux server it had been years since I had even looked at Linux as a desktop OS, along that time I joined the Tek forums and found the 1 year challenge and decided to give it a go, first step was to use a older computer I had laying around to test distros, then tested on the same hardware virtual box, doing this got me comfortable with the Linux CLI and after a couple months of screwing around I had the confidence and enough knowledge to make the switch.
You have to understand I came from basically a lifetime of using nothing but Windows, but I knew I could do this if I just devoted the time to learn, so I looked at the hardware I was running and decided it was upgrade time, I built a all AMD system to ease the pass through pains, signed up for the challenge in March of 2015 and installed Fedora 22 on my desktop, by late June I had a working pass through, and by the end of July had everything configured and running as it does today.
The purpose in telling you this is that anyone can do it, it just requires the amount of time devoted to learn, I'm not some power user or geek, just a average person who isn't afraid of learning something new and if I can do it anyone can. I will say this I'd never go back to running Windows as my daily driver or really in any other way other than in a KVM, I'm spoiled and I like it......were there problems that need to be solved...yes, was it easy? no not at first it was months before I felt totally comfortable using Linux, even today I have to google stuff but it's no different than googleing stuff about Windows.
You just need to read and devote the time to learn....
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