Setting up a windows VM on Linux.

[Nexblitzer]

So I'm going to try and use windows In a virtual Machine from now on as I don't like the road Windows 11 and so fourth is going down. 

1. If I use a a weaker GPU for Linux, and pass my 4090 through to the VM, Do I need to plug both GPU's HDMI/display port into my monitor? or just the primary GPU, and have the other video output sort of routed through? Not quite sure there.

2. If I were to live stream to YouTube/Twitch from my VM, would that cause any issues for my Main PC?

 

That's bout it for the moment.

[Eigenvektor]

16 minutes ago, Nexblitzer said:

So I'm going to try and use windows In a virtual Machine from now on as I don't like the road Windows 11 and so fourth is going down.

And how exactly does running Windows in a VM solve that issue? At the end of the day, you're still running WIndows, just with more hurdles.

 

Depending on what games you play, it's going to be much less hassle to run them on Linux directly.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, Nexblitzer said:

So I'm going to try and use windows In a virtual Machine from now on as I don't like the road Windows 11 and so fourth is going down. 

1. If I use a a weaker GPU for Linux, and pass my 4090 through to the VM, Do I need to plug both GPU's HDMI/display port into my monitor? or just the primary GPU, and have the other video output sort of routed through? Not quite sure there.

2. If I were to live stream to YouTube/Twitch from my VM, would that cause any issues for my Main PC?

 

That's bout it for the moment.

1. I believe you can passthrough the video from the VM to Linux (it was still being worked on last time I tried, I haven't tried again since) but its probably still better if you have a dedicated monitor for it.

 

The problem I found with having Windows as a VM is latency.  Unless you dedicate some of your host OS CPU cores entirely to the VM (you disable Linux from being able to use them at all), games run poorly due to Windows having to share with the host OS and this causes issues, particularly in games.  So I'd only do it if you had a high-end CPU where you're okay with dedicating 6-8 CPU cores to the VM only. 

 

I gave up on this idea personally and just built a second PC as I do software video encoding on Linux and losing half the cores, halved the encoding speed.  Given you already have a dedicated GPU for the VM and ideally dedicated peripherals as its fiddly constantly swapping between, its just less hassle having a second PC.

 

Really the idea of passthrough is to make a single PC appear as if its physically several PCs with their own devices.  I don't think its a good solution if you are a single person wanting to use both.

[svmlegacy]

Honestly, just Dual Boot Windows and Linux beside each other. Solves a lot of compatibility issues.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 hours ago, svmlegacy said:

Honestly, just Dual Boot Windows and Linux beside each other. Solves a lot of compatibility issues.

I found that's a bad way to do it, as it just becomes inconvenient to stop what you're doing on Linux to boot into Windows, so you end up just staying in Windows.

 

The trick to getting used to Linux, for me at least, was to use it as much as possible and resist switching to Windows unless I absolutely had to.  That was far easier having a second PC for Windows only, so I never actually shut down the Linux machine and it became easier to do almost everything on Linux.

 

Although Proton wasn't a thing at the time, so gaming on Linux had a whole lot of issues that were disruptive itself.  Could end up with the monitor stuck with a blank screen and hard to get out of it.  You can still encounter these issues, thus why I keep a gaming only box.

[Nexblitzer]

21 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

And how exactly does running Windows in a VM solve that issue? At the end of the day, you're still running WIndows, just with more hurdles.

 

Depending on what games you play, it's going to be much less hassle to run them on Linux directly.

I may use use LInux full time. But consider for a moment that I'm new, and don't know much about it. However, I do know it's easy to setup a VM in. Also, I'm learning to edit on Davinci resolve, for Linux there are far more cons then pros. So running windows is a definite must.

[Nexblitzer]

21 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

1. I believe you can passthrough the video from the VM to Linux (it was still being worked on last time I tried, I haven't tried again since) but its probably still better if you have a dedicated monitor for it.

 

The problem I found with having Windows as a VM is latency.  Unless you dedicate some of your host OS CPU cores entirely to the VM (you disable Linux from being able to use them at all), games run poorly due to Windows having to share with the host OS and this causes issues, particularly in games.  So I'd only do it if you had a high-end CPU where you're okay with dedicating 6-8 CPU cores to the VM only. 

 

I gave up on this idea personally and just built a second PC as I do software video encoding on Linux and losing half the cores, halved the encoding speed.  Given you already have a dedicated GPU for the VM and ideally dedicated peripherals as its fiddly constantly swapping between, its just less hassle having a second PC.

 

Really the idea of passthrough is to make a single PC appear as if its physically several PCs with their own devices.  I don't think its a good solution if you are a single person wanting to use both.

Hey, I appreciate this Answer. Ok so a couple of things. here

1. I have to use Windows for editing applications like Abode photoshop and Davinci resolve. I've read and seen that it's better to use on windows for a general experience in quality performance. So using windows as a VM is a must.

2. i"m getting a 7950X and running most of my cores to the windows VM actually. So this shouldn't be an issue. Gonna add a second GPU for Linux, use the 4090 for games.

3. So one monitor connected to my Linux GPU, and the main gaming one for 4090? I see. 

4. What VM application should I use for Linux

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 hours ago, Nexblitzer said:

Hey, I appreciate this Answer. Ok so a couple of things. here

1. I have to use Windows for editing applications like Abode photoshop and Davinci resolve. I've read and seen that it's better to use on windows for a general experience in quality performance. So using windows as a VM is a must.

2. i"m getting a 7950X and running most of my cores to the windows VM actually. So this shouldn't be an issue. Gonna add a second GPU for Linux, use the 4090 for games.

3. So one monitor connected to my Linux GPU, and the main gaming one for 4090? I see. 

4. What VM application should I use for Linux

1. I'd definitely give Davinci Resolve a try on Linux, you'll get to compare side by side.

 

2. With a 7950X I'd think dedicating half the cores (an entire chiplet) to Windows might make more sense for gaming, at the cost of losing some performance in productivity.  I'm only guessing though, but I'd think using a VM would complicate Windows being able schedule correctly between chiplets as the physical CPU is being hidden.  I know there is something about CPU topology in the VM configuration, but this would be easier than figuring out of that works correctly.

 

3. That's certainly how it will work to begin with, I'm not sure how you add the components to passthrough the output from the VM back to the host OS  It could be they have automated this now so its easy.

 

4. I just used standard QEmu on Linux, but it might make more sense to use Proxmox and virtualise both Linux and Windows, especially if you are getting two dGPUs.  That said if you just run QEmu on a normal Linux distro you won't need two dGPUs, as Linux can use the iGPU in the 7950X

 

Considering it seems you are dedicating all the heavy workloads to Windows though, I still think you'd be better off having a dedicated PC for Linux for basic web browsing, e-mail, etc and using the new build for Windows.  I don't think its worth losing the performance in Windows and all the related hassle by virtualising it.