Boot directly into VM

[versus999]

Probably a stupid question, but yeah. I really wanted to install Windows 7 on my laptop. But, my laptop is too new and there isn't a VMD Storage Driver for Windows 7.

Now, i looked for ways to get it to work, but I didn't find many options to run it on bare metal sadly. Which means I'll have to use a VM. I still want to have a kinda authentic Windows 7 feel to it. So is there a way to install a Win 7 VM on a distro without any gui and make it boot into the VM on startup? It should all be local on my laptop.

Any help for that would be appreciated, thanks!

[manikyath]

i mean, you could probably make it work with hyper-V or virtualbox, but the question is: why?

 

windows 7 is not supported, it's relatively sluggish (especially in a VM because very limited GPU acceleration), it'll render all the ports on your laptop pretty much useless because you need to passtrough every device you may want to plug in manually, and so on.

 

if you insist on the windows 7 look, use some sort of classic shell application.

[Needfuldoer]

Why? Windows 11 64-bit will run anything Windows 7 64-bit can.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

If you really dont want the bloatware just go install w10 ltsc, support till 2028 iirc and no garbage bloatware, not sure about the liscensing since ive only seen 1 site sell em at w10 pro oem gray market key prices

 

Yea running in a vm will be slow which will prob ruin the entire point of getting w7, besides as mentioned above you can install visual mods to make w10 look abit more like w7, even bring the classic start menu back. And software support for w7 will problably end soon so rip usability, security updates already ended 2 years ago but that doesnt really matter anyways as long as you arent targettable to hackers (work in big tech or government or something along the lines of that)

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, versus999 said:

So is there a way to install a Win 7 VM on a distro without any gui and make it boot into the VM on startup?

Sure, though I wouldn't recommend it. You can look into KVM or Virtualbox and you can run them on any barebones distro like Arch or the CLI-only version of Debian; you'll still need to install xorg to be able to actually see anything but you don't necessarily need a desktop environment. Autostarting the virtual machine would be pretty easy with a systemd service or even just a short shell script referenced in your bashrc to start it at login.

 

It will be a terrible user experience and expose you to all sorts of unpatched zero day exploits... but it can be done.

49 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

that doesnt really matter anyways as long as you arent targettable to hackers (work in big tech or government or something along the lines of that)

Uhhh no, it does matter even if you aren't in government. Your computer can be recruited in a botnet, your files can be encrypted for ransom and your personal data and credentials could be stolen. - all with very little effort from the attacker.

[Ralphred]

18 minutes ago, Sauron said:

you'll still need to install xorg to be able to actually see anything

This isn't strictly true; though I wouldn't recommend someone try to configure and implement GPU passthrough for the first time on a CLI, there is no reason to have X permanently installed.

If I were doing this:

• Pick any distro (but use your "endgame" kernel*)
• Passthrough anything the host doesn't need (audio, keyboard**, mouse**)
• Build your VM (qemu/virtmanager)
• Backup the config files (the virtual drive should be a whole drive/partition)
• Install your final host OS
• Run a script from inittab to read /proc/cmdline, and start the VM when passthrough is active
• Re-implement the VM, set-up ssh for host administration
• Set-up grub with administration entry (no passthrough, for host updates etc)
• Optionally set-up a bootable USB with a GUI for SHTF recovery/administration

Considering that the libvirtd and VMM come out of the RedHat house, CentOS seems a sensible build OS, but systemd is bloat for this use case, S6 would be the ideal choice.

 

*Any generic kernel is going to be the epitome of bloat for this use case, config/build your own, with the extra security layer of no capability for module loading, using an initrd would also be a complete waste of time.

**The reason I say these is you want the best end experience, and if you are allowing windows to load it's native drivers for things like MM keys and touchpads etc IME it'll work better, and cut down on translation layer overhead.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Uhhh no, it does matter even if you aren't in government. Your computer can be recruited in a botnet, your files can be encrypted for ransom and your personal data and credentials could be stolen. - all with very little effort from the attacker.

ive dailyed outdated android for what 6-7 years straight and i had absolutely no issues with getting hacked

 

Parents old atom laptop on an ancient w7 install that hasnt been updated in years, nope no hacking issues there either

 

Moms old laptop that im currently using (s410p) running w8.1 and im too lazy to update, guess what? No hacking issues either

 

Oh and never had virus issues either on all of these

 

 

So i call complete garbage on the ridicolous amount of fearmongering surrounding w7 "uNnSuPpOrTeD bEcAuSe No UpDaTeS = yOuR cOmPuTeR hAs ViRuS"  though fearmongering surrounding w xp i do get cause uhh source code is now public due to some hack awhile ago so thats at a reasonably larger risk than w7 but still quite unlikely to have issues too, you just gotta be extremely unlucky to get hacked or virus issues though the latter can be a result of the user being a moron and downloading a virus

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Ralphred said:

This isn't strictly true; though I wouldn't recommend someone try to configure and implement GPU passthrough for the first time on a CLI, there is no reason to have X permanently installed.

It's a laptop so gpu passthrough is likely not an option. So yes, you do need Xorg (or wayland I guess) in order to see anything as far as I'm aware.

1 hour ago, Ralphred said:

systemd is bloat for this use case

...is it? I doubt it would use more than 1% of OP's cpu at its worst.

1 hour ago, Ralphred said:

*Any generic kernel is going to be the epitome of bloat for this use case

I doubt the microscopic difference in performance would warrant the hassle of building your own. It's a virtual machine without gpu passthrough, it's going to perform like trash for everyday use no matter what and rolling your kernel won't change that.

23 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

ive dailyed outdated android for what 6-7 years straight and i had absolutely no issues with getting hacked

Android sandboxes programs and you mostly care about having an updated browser on it anyway. Windows does not have these protections and you need to download and run software from the open internet if you want to install anything. You're begging to be ransomwared. But hey, if you don't value your security (or your sanity, because this won't be a smooth experience) don't let me stop you. Just don't be fooled into thinking you're not opening yourself up to a huge risk.

 

Also you wouldn't necessarily know if your android phone was part of a botnet. Just saying.

29 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

though fearmongering surrounding w xp i do get cause uhh source code is now public due to some hack awhile ago so thats at a reasonably larger risk than w7 but still quite unlikely to have issues too

Were you not around for the wanacry thing? It had nothing to do with the source code being published.

[Ralphred]

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

It's a laptop so gpu passthrough is likely not an option.

Nah, just tell the kernel it's not to load drivers for it and leave it for passthrough, Linux can cope with headless.

 

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

I doubt the microscopic difference in performance would warrant the hassle of building your own.

It only takes an hour, from scratch, for config and build, it's worth it for the security benefits alone.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

Android sandboxes programs and you mostly care about having an updated browser on it anyway.

Well that explains why android antiviruses are next to useless

 

though i never run any antivirus cause they just slow laptops to a crawl and arent antiviruses just for protecting from malicious software? I mean if you wanna run potentially virus infested software you could just make a virtual machine and run it in a sandbox, antivirus seems to be for morons that run virus infested software without sandboxing it so they dont get their os infected and have to wipe their drive and reinstall windows

[10leej]

All you need to do is configure the hypervisor of choice to pass through the networking, usb ports, and gpu.

Pretty simple to do actually. Now the question is why win7? It's every bit the Spyware (actually worse) that win10 and win11 are. On top of not being actively supported.

[Vishera]

I can help you install it bare metal on the latest and greatest hardware.

I already done it on my Ryzen 7 5700X system.

18 hours ago, manikyath said:

(especially in a VM because very limited GPU acceleration)

That's what V-GPUs + GPU partitioning are for:

 

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Vishera said:

I can help you install it bare metal on the latest and greatest hardware.

I already done it on my Ryzen 7 5700X system.

That's what V-GPUs + GPU partitioning are for:

 

good luck with that on a laptop.