QEMU/KVM is great! And hindsights.

[shuri]

For 1 year now I've used Windows in qemu/kvm on my Linux desktop without any fiddly or janky factors. Production ready if to say.

 

I'm on a Intel platform, using the iGPU for Linux and a Nvidia GPU for the VM. They're connected to a common screen, so I just need to switch the monitor's input to change between them.

I found virtual sound cards to work(?) quite poorly, so I got a extra PCI soundcard so I can pass a physical one to the VM.

For input i'm running Barrier, a fork of the old Synergy. Also I passed a USB controller on my mobo so I have a few USB ports.

Networking is done by making a bridge on your host and assigning the VM to it. For mass storage I passed a SSD using /dev/disk/by-uuid/. I'm sharing my /home to the VM using samba.

 

It's a bit of work to get everything running the first time but after it's configured, it justworks(tm).

Best guide for enabling PCI passtrough

Error 43 patch

[shuri]

19 minutes ago, _StrikE_ said:

But why ? Don't get me wrong i'm not questioning you, i just want to understand why do it and what are the benefits.

Well i'm glad you asked.

I switched completely on Linux some time back because I started learning network administartion and had found the quality of Windows 10 unacceptable. It's the little things.

 

I've had great time on Gentoo Linux and CentOS as opposed to Windows 10 or Server 2016.

 

But sometimes you just need Windows; Microsoft Office, most video games, Adobe, Vegas Pro, Active Directory. For then i'll fire up a VM and we're back to the OP.

[shuri]

7 hours ago, _StrikE_ said:

Sounds quite interesting, i'm intrigued, how is the performance vs native windows?

Some say it's up to 95% of running native- and i'd probably agree in graphical processes. You lose some CPU power (1,2k from Cinebench, I think native was 1,5k) but I haven't had perfomance issues running TF2 and IL2 anyways LOL

[Chunchunmaru_]

On 7/9/2019 at 11:08 AM, shuri said:

Best guide for enabling PCI passtrough

Error 43 patch

Personally I workarounded the error 43 with passing the actual NVIDIA card bios, previously dumped, then obviously the kvm_hidden state on the libvirt settings

There was also a guide on this forum here