want to get into qemu virtualization

[ultra99]

I currently dual boot between Win10 and macOS (hackintosh). There are times where I need to use MS Office, that's why I left linux, however, I want to be able to use all 3 OS's simultaneously. Hence, I read qemu might be the way to go with usb and gpu passthrough.

There's a youtube video by SnazzyLabs that showed running macOS with gpu passthrough, but didn't show how or gave details.

 

So I'm wondering, what would an ideal host be, linux (I'm comfortable with Manjaro) or Win10?

Ultimately, I want to be able run Windows-specific or macOS-specific apps simultaneously without the need to reboot.

[Vulture78]

Hi,

I'm working on the same thing. 

 

I currently have a linux host (Ubuntu 20.04 - full desktop) and I am successfully running MacOs and Windows with GPU passthrough.   The main directions i followed are from this site:  https://davejansen.com/install-macos-11-big-sur-in-a-vm-qemu-kvm/  I did follow guides from a few other sites via google searches.  I don't really recall what i followed for windows but it was a lot easier.

 

While everything seems to be working right now, i currently only have one gpu in addition to the integrated graphics so i can only run one of the other operating systems (BigSur / Windows 10) on my GPU with passthrough (RX 570).   I am waiting for delivery of a second hand gpu from ebay so that I can hopefully run all 3 operating systems at once.

 

Personally, i would think you would want to run windows and mac os x with accelerated graphics... You can probably get by with emulated graphics with Linux.   If you have a  GPU for each system (either 2xgpu + integrated graphics or 3xGPU) , i would suggest running linux as a host system.    Otherwise, if you are going to need to run as system with emulated graphics i would suggest hosting eqmu on Windows with one GPU (dedicated or integrated) and Mac Os with the other GPU and emulating the video of linux... 

 

Good luck!  I was alot of work to get everything working but it was a fun project to undertake.

[ultra99]

18 minutes ago, Vulture78 said:

Hi,

I'm working on the same thing. 

 

I currently have a linux host (Ubuntu 20.04 - full desktop) and I am successfully running MacOs and Windows with GPU passthrough.   The main directions i followed are from this site:  https://davejansen.com/install-macos-11-big-sur-in-a-vm-qemu-kvm/  I did follow guides from a few other sites via google searches.  I don't really recall what i followed for windows but it was a lot easier.

 

While everything seems to be working right now, i currently only have one gpu in addition to the integrated graphics so i can only run one of the other operating systems (BigSur / Windows 10) on my GPU with passthrough (RX 570).   I am waiting for delivery of a second hand gpu from ebay so that I can hopefully run all 3 operating systems at once.

 

Personally, i would think you would want to run windows and mac os x with accelerated graphics... You can probably get by with emulated graphics with Linux.   If you have a  GPU for each system (either 2xgpu + integrated graphics or 3xGPU) , i would suggest running linux as a host system.    Otherwise, if you are going to need to run as system with emulated graphics i would suggest hosting eqmu on Windows with one GPU (dedicated or integrated) and Mac Os with the other GPU and emulating the video of linux... 

 

Good luck!  I was alot of work to get everything working but it was a fun project to undertake.

Thanks for the response!

I didn't think that I'd need multiple gpus. I'm on a desktop running Ryzen 3900x with a single gpu, Vega 64,

[Vulture78]

10 minutes ago, ultra99 said:

Thanks for the response!

I didn't think that I'd need multiple gpus. I'm on a desktop running Ryzen 3900x with a single gpu, Vega 64,

Take what i say with a grain of salt... I am by no means an expert at this. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can confirm this. But from my understanding, if you only have one GPU, then only the host OS can use it.  I don't think you can passthrough the GPU unless you have 2. If you passthrough the GPU(integrated or dedicated) to an OS, it's not available for other OSes to use (for hardware acceleration).  You can emulate the video, but then you don't get the benefits of hardware acceleration.  

 

My experience with MacOS under qemu is that it runs terrible (pretty much unusable) without GPU acceleration.  Windows and/or linux will run without acceleration for certain use cases ( it would be fine to run server tasks and/or ms office). But if you intend to use windows as a desktop (gaming or watching youtube) i would suggest you dedicate it's own gpu for that.

 

You do have much better hardware than i do, so you experience might be better...  You can always set it up using emulated video to see what performance is like. I am sure others on this forum would love to know what your results would be.

[C2dan88]

yes, you need a dedicated gpu for each os you want to passthrough to.

See level1techs guides

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/the-vfio-and-gpu-passthrough-beginners-resource/129897

[ultra99]

53 minutes ago, C2dan88 said:

yes, you need a dedicated gpu for each os you want to passthrough to.

See level1techs guides

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/the-vfio-and-gpu-passthrough-beginners-resource/129897

Thanks, I'll definitely check it out. Wondering, if I would run each VM separately (not open at the same time) using gpu passthrough, would I still need 2 separate gpus?

[Vulture78]

1 hour ago, ultra99 said:

Thanks, I'll definitely check it out. Wondering, if I would run each VM separately (not open at the same time) using gpu passthrough, would I still need 2 separate gpus?

From what I read, it specifically said that if you want to passthrough a GPU, you would need one GPU for your host OS and a second GPU to passthrough to the VM(s).  If you have 2 gpus, you can run as many VMs off the second GPU as long as you don't run them at the same time. (one can be integrated graphics)

 

Now that being said, if you google "headless kvm" or "headless virtualization server" there seems to be some posts about running a linux host OS without a GPU.  In theory running this configuration would leave your vega graphics free to be passed through to the VMs.    That being said, i have no experience with this and have no idea if there are any limitations that would prevent this from working.  You could always look into that option.  It would allow you to run one VM at a time with the GPU passed through.  You could run others  at the same time with emulated graphics...