Virtual Machine Dilemna

[SPCQC]

Hi!

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

I want to have a few Virtual Machines on my server for ISPConfig and WebHosting, and also a KVM Machine with GPU Passthrough for occasional gaming. I know that for the VM with GPU passthrough, I will probably use KVM with Virt-Manager as I saw in my research but for the rest, I don't know if I should use VirtualBox or Virt-Manager.

I did some research and didn't have any appropriate answer. This is why I am coming here.

Thanks a lot

[Windows7ge]

You would have less overhead using QEMU so depending on what these services do exactly it'd offer a better experience.

[SPCQC]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

You would have less overhead using QEMU so depending on what these services do exactly it'd offer a better experience.

Isn't Virt-Manager using KVM/QEMU?

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, SPCQC said:

Isn't Virt-Manager using KVM/QEMU?

I believe it supports a couple different back-ends but I haven't tried it with other. To answer the question though yes it uses QEMU/KVM by default. I'm not sure what VirtualBox uses but from my own experience it's always had unnecessary overhead.

 

Do make sure to install OVMF when you go to setup the gaming VM. It will give the Guest UEFI support. I have a full tutorial on how to set this up if you have any questions or concerns.

[SPCQC]

7 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I have a full tutorial on how to set this up if you have any questions or concerns.

Are you talking about this one?

I'm not requiring to dual boot and would have like to have a VM only for gaming.

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

Are you talking about this one?

I'm not requiring to dual boot and would have like to have a VM only for gaming.

Yep. That one.

 

Is that a question? With this you don't need to reboot the computer and the overhead is extremely low. Near bare metal performance.

[SPCQC]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Is that a question? With this you don't need to reboot the computer and the overhead is extremely low. Near bare metal performance.

Yes it was a question. Sorry it was not clear.

BTW, is that a place where we can more easily chat?

 

I am understanding that the tutorial is for dual booting and not like a VM that you just fires up. Is that right?

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

Yes it was a question. Sorry it was not clear.

BTW, is that a place where we can more easily chat?

 

I am understanding that the tutorial is for dual booting and not like a VM that you just fires up. Is that right?

If you want to chat in that thread it is an option. I need to leave for work soon though so we won't have much conversation until tonight or tomorrow though.

 

Complete opposite. The tutorial is to teach why dual-booting is outdated when people want Windows & GNU/Linux on one system by using high performance virtualization.

[SPCQC]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Complete opposite. The tutorial is to teach why dual-booting is outdated when people want Windows & GNU/Linux on one system by using high performance virtualization.

Well that's exactly what I want. I'll look forward to that in the next days and write here if anything. Thanks a lot.

 

I might have one question thought. Since KVM/QEMU use almost baremetal performance, why does VirtualBox even exists? Should I do all my VMs for ISPConfig and personal hosting in Virt-Manager?

[SPCQC]

Also, I see that I need "Two dedicated GPUs.". I surely don't have this in my machine. Is that really needed?

[Windows7ge]

41 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

Well that's exactly what I want. I'll look forward to that in the next days and write here if anything. Thanks a lot.

 

I might have one question thought. Since KVM/QEMU use almost baremetal performance, why does VirtualBox even exists? Should I do all my VMs for ISPConfig and personal hosting in Virt-Manager?

Oracle VM Virtualbox has its uses as a hypervisor be it preference or use case but if the goal is maximum performance within a VM it's not a very good hypervisor. Not by a long shot.

 

10 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

Also, I see that I need "Two dedicated GPUs.". I surely don't have this in my machine. Is that really needed?

The host needs a GPU and the VM needs it's own GPU. There are solutions to this in the enterprise space but they aren't for gaming applications. You'll want the Windows VM to have its own GPU. No real way around it.

[SPCQC]

16 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

The host needs a GPU and the VM needs it's own GPU. There are solutions to this in the enterprise space but they aren't for gaming applications. You'll want the Windows VM to have its own GPU. No real way around it.

Otherwise, I have this graphic card.

https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Graphics-01308-01-109-C33457-00-113-C3340200-105/dp/B078GVBFDG

Would that be sufficient?

[Windows7ge]

45 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

Otherwise, I have this graphic card.

https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Graphics-01308-01-109-C33457-00-113-C3340200-105/dp/B078GVBFDG

Would that be sufficient?

It would but I wouldn't go all the way back to something that old. Does your CPU have an iGPU? If you don't need Linux to have a very strong GPU it should work fine then you can pass your dGPU to the VM.

[SPCQC]

3 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

It would but I wouldn't go all the way back to something that old. Does your CPU have an iGPU? If you don't need Linux to have a very strong GPU it should work fine then you can pass your dGPU to the VM.

CPU being : Xeon E5-2620 v3, I don't have an iGPU.

I guess I should use this lil graphic card then.

[Windows7ge]

57 minutes ago, SPCQC said:

CPU being : Xeon E5-2620 v3, I don't have an iGPU.

I guess I should use this lil graphic card then.

It'll get the job done.

[SPCQC]

Hey. I kinda need your help.

I have two GPUs : A 1070ti and  a little AMD card. The monitor is plugged into the AMD card.

The 1070ti will indeed be for gaming, so passthrough.

 

I did step 5.2Override Device Driver Based on Device ID of your tutorial and after reboot. I only have a black screen with a line for like a minute, and then blank screen. I can't connect to SSH, can't ping the computer.

I did some research on Internet and I was able to put a LiveUSB of Ubuntu, edited back the vfio-driver-override.conf file but I was not able to sudo update-initramfs -u since the partition was mounted as read-only. 

Now I am stuck there. What could be done?

 

Thanks a lot for your help

 

EDIT : After a few minutes I was able to connect wit SSH to the computer. I will try method 5.3

[SPCQC]

In fact, I just need one detail that I didn't understand. I only have one monitor. In which card should it be plugged? The 1070ti or the lil AMD one?

 

Thanks