I use vmware and qemu
I use virt-manager, aka Virtual Machine Manager. Using this specifically because of the winapps for Linux repo has instructions on how to get Windows apps to run through the VM to be integrated in a Linux environment.
might try that tbh am gonna run razer software or apps that dont work on linux at all and for games am gonna use my windows ssd
How “scriptable” is virt-manager?
My biggest issue with VirtualBox is that I have to install OSes as if I’m actually installing them. There aren’t any images (at least that I’m aware of) that can run with a command, like deploying an EC2.
virt-manager is a frontend for a bunch of virtualisation systems, but usually it’s configured for qemu+kvm+libvirt.
Libvirt is a dedicated API to managing virtual machines. It’s probably most versatile when launching new VMs on it by using the libvirt XML definitions, but there’s an API you can use if you want more low level access, and optional command line tooling as well.
Something like
virt-install --name=lemmyvm --vcpus=1 --memory=2048 --cdrom=/tmp/debian-netinst.iso --disk size=50 --os-variant=debian12should automatically install a Debian 12 VM (from a downloaded ISO) through the automated setup process. It’s been a while since I used that, though, so you may need an extra step or two to get the setup to autocomplete today. I think cloudinit is how you auto setup Linux distros these days?Virt-manager isn’t super scriptable but the underlying libvirt can be controlled by virsh which is a shell interface to libvirt. You can use both at the same time, e.g. start and stop via virsh and access to gui container via virt-manager/virt-viewer.
Virtual manager isn’t scriptable at all as it is just a GUI for libvirt. You are probably looking for qemu or virsh (libvirt)
KVM + Qemu + libvirt + virt-manager = ❤️
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Qemu can be a type I as well if you use hardware acceleration such as KVM or Hyper-V.
Usually VirtualBox. It’s easy and free.
I agree ngl i prefer vmware more
Me three.
a rather odd choice given the alternatives
Besides VMWare it always seemed the easiest for me to quickly make a Windows VM or so. Everything else usually had more configuration steps. But that’s been a while ago. There could very well have been easier tools available in the mean time. I never bothered to look.
I only ever used “permanent” virtualization once on my server. I think with Xen. But it didn’t give me any benefits for my use case so I dropped it later on. Also probably at least ten years ago.
Gnome boxes.
Based on QEMU+KVM so it’s quite robust. It works pretty well, plus it has various little features working out of the box that in some other software is a pain in the arse to configure.
Sticks out a bit on my system due to still being GTK3, but there is a GTK4 prototype out that usually works well.
E: downvoting anybody who says Gnome Boxes because you use a different virtual machine frontend is laughably pathetic lmao. Some people in the Linux community are such losers lol
It doesn’t work for all cases and it is annoying that you have to wait until creation to change CPU count.
Does it matter what front end it uses if the underlying environment is QEMU+KVM. Upvote for tha above.
virtmanager as frontend for qemu/kvm. I tried the commandline but it’s too annoying
Gnome Boxes 🥲 Because im avoiding to install anything to the kernel.
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You’re using qemu+kvm.
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-boxes/stable/supported-protocols.html.en
You also could try virtual manager
It is all KVM so it is natively supported
Qemu/KVM and Virt Manager. I have three VMs that I pass my GPU to: a Hackintosh, a Windows 10, and and Windows 7.
I hope you air gap that Windows 7 VM
Do you have two GPUs or do you fully switch to the VM while passed through?
I have two GPUs - an RX 550 hooked to the monitors and 580 for VMs. Until recently, once the VM shut down, the 580 was able to return to Linux and be used again via PRIME - no reset bug. It randomly stopped working and I’ve tried to debug it to fix the problem to little avail.
I actually may have seen the same issue recently. Have you tried adding
initcall_blacklist=simpledrm_platform_driver_initto your kernel launch params?I’ll have to try that. What I have tried so far is running a different kernel version and making sure my driver blacklists are correct (I found that the GPU shouldn’t ever connect to snd_hda_intel. It briefly eas again, but after fixing it, I still had the problem.).
For me, I have intel integrated + amd discrete. When I tried to set DRI_PRIME to 0 it complained that 0 was invalid, when I set it to 2 it said it had to be less than the number of GPUs detected (2). After digging in I noticed my cards in
/dev/dri/by-pathwere card1 card2 rather than 0 and 1 like everyone online said they should be. Searching for that I found a few threads like this one that mentioned simpledrm was enabled by default in 6.4.8, which apparently broke some kind of enumeration with amd GPUs. I don’t really understand why, but setting that param made my cards number correctly, and prime selection works again.Huh. My issue seems different, but I’ll still test that flag to see if it changes anything. My problem looks like the device doesn’t return to host after VM shutdown, possibly because of the reset bug (based on my observation of dmesg), which I hadn’t encountered after about a year of GPU passthrough VM usage.
Ahh, yeah if it’s specifically when coming back from a VM, that sounds different. Maybe the vfio_pci driver isn’t getting swapped back to the real one? I barely know how it works, I’m sure you’ve checked everything.
I never found a way to share a Public folder with VirtManager though, I need to move files between host and guest. How would you go about it?
Install the quemu guest agent in the VM. For Linux and Windows you’ll even be able to drag and drop.
I go to the host folder I want to transfer files from and run ‘’’python3 -m http.server’’’. Then (I can’t remove if I use ‘’’ip a’’’ to find the IP address of the host or if I used mDNS), I use the guest web browser to download files.
And here I have just been using samba.
Virt manager for qemu. I use docker and distrobox for Linux distros
I recently managed to use my windows partition (for dual boot) as a disk for a qemu. I don’t use it but really cool trick anyways. Tutorial here
Also it’s not very healthy for windows since it is not designed for constant hardware changes. But idc all my apps are installed on D: so I can just reinstall it without thinking about it much
I tried doing tbe same thing as you on my separate windows ssd gives me a error on bootup and qemu/kvm won’t let me boot from my vendor usb I tried only putting the isos and windows cannot find the ssd and hiren just gets a error
Did you read the article I linked? They use RAID to create a virtual disk (similar to a loop device in this context)
ohh i seen some parts of the article
Raw qemu at the command line for the one I use on a daily basis (not recommended for the average user). VirtualBox if I need to spin something up quickly but don’t expect to need to keep it past the current testing cycle.
Virtualbox is slow and the licensing for guest addons is nasty. It is proprietary of course and if a person in a company uses it unlicensed they will send the company a massive invoice.
I only need it for the very occasional testing of open-source software on Windows, using the precanned VM images provided by Microsoft (last I checked, they had none for qemu, or I would be using that instead). And if you’re using software commercially, you’d better be damned sure you understand the licensing before setting up. A company of any size will have lawyers vetting that anyway.
In other words, I don’t disagree with you, but those issues don’t matter for my use case.
I used KVM with
virt-managerfor a long time. Even ran a gaming VM with GPU pass-through.Then I created a Docker image with Linux, Gnome, and novnc so I can spin one up instantly with little resource overhead and control it from any web browser.
control it from any whuAT!?
Replied to others with this but realized you won’t get those notifications. I finally got around to releasing this, which is Debian in your browser via Docker: https://nowsci.com/webbian
@Mwa qemu :blobfoxcomfycomputer:
So far I’ve been fine with some Oracle Virtualbox and some using the VM Manager that was in my distro or maybe I downloaded it. It’s just called Virtual Machine Manager made by Red Hat. Libvirt.
Between those I’ve been able to do everything I have needed.
KVM
(VMware is proprietary software)
