[ale] Virtual machine questions for public use machines

[Boris Borisov]

Maybe this is the solution that Michael proposed. Fresh install image with
all software that you need on hidden partition. And some simple automation
to check at boot. If is older than X days copy image to work partition and
then reboot.

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 8:00 AM, JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:

> PCI passthru of GPUs isn't easy.
>
> VT-d is mandatory and kernel, BIOS, chipset support for it is as well.
> The GPU
> used matters too. The folks who tend to work on this stuff are gamers and
> use
> higher-end GPUs, not the built-in graphics or $20 cards.  If Windows is the
> guestOS, then manually installing the GPU drivers will be required. No
> setup.exe.
>
> Lastly, I think shutting down the Windows VM is mostly a crash situation
> ...
> from what I've read.
>
> I've never attempted to do this.
>
> On 01/26/2015 12:52 AM, Alex Carver wrote:
> > On 2015-01-25 18:04, Horkan Smith wrote:
> >> Alex, I don't have 'the' answer for you, but here's some thoughts:
> >
> >> Do you have a preferred VM host software (kvm/qemu, virtualbox, vmware?)
> >
> > No, no preferred software, just something that lets me run a GUI guest
> on a
> > non-GUI host and also lets me kill the guest from the outside. After that
> > anything is fine.
> >
> >>
> >> I *think* to give the guest full screen control, you need PCI
> passthrough,
> >> which looks to be hardware/ vm software dependent.  It's probably worth
> a
> >> look, but don't be surprised if it's not available for your HW or SW.
> >
> > I'll have to test this then, no problem.  The machines are old Dells with
> > dual Xeons and a PCI graphics card though I'm not sure what. They're not
> > going to have all the extra virtualization support that new processors
> do but
> > it only has to support a very basic host and a fairly slim guest.
> >
> >>
> >> If PCI passthrough won't work for you, then the next 'least stuff
> running
> >> in linux' is probably something like directvnc (a framebuffer based vnc
> >> client) running on the linux machine, pointing to a VNC server exported
> by
> >> your VM software, or alternately by your guest OS.  There might be a
> >> framebuffer version of a spice client or an rdesktop client, not sure.
> >> Your mileage may vary, my experience w/ the majority of
> >> direct-to-framebuffer apps is they're buggy and not worth it.
> >>
> >> Last but not least, you could crank up an X-windows server with either
> no
> >> window manager, or a small window manager configured to offer no
> >> menus/escapes; then have your VM start in a full-screen window.  You can
> >> turn off the alt-f1, alt-f2, etc in your xorg.conf file to help prevent
> >> escapes.
> >>
> >> With any of these options it's probably possible to point your linux
> >> console to a serial port, if the machines have one.
> >>
> >> FWIW, I run kvm most of the time 'cause I like the fact I don't have to
> >> rebuild drivers when I switch kernels, and I like the command line
> >> configurability.  I've used both vmware and virtualbox in the past and
> been
> >> reasonably happy... for this application, I'd do a quick test to see if
> the
> >> windows guest ran significantly better on different VM software.
> >
> > I'll keep all of this in mind during testing.  It sounds like PCI
> passthrough
> > is going to be my first stop since full screen control is exactly what
> I'd
> > like to have, the illusion that the guest is the only OS on the system.
> >
>
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