Virtual Machines, Hyper-V. Anything there for the home PC user

[Clunkclick]

After being on the receiving end of 18 months worth of regular sales E-mails from a VM ware agent (That's following ONE casual  visit only to one of their web pages - they are on a par with Virgin cable (relentless)) and having had some disappointing results attempting to run elderly flight sim programs on the latest generations of Windows Oses, I decided to see if it was possible to run a VM on the kit I have, with a view to installing Windows XP on a VM and running some of the sims in there.

 

VMs have been around at least for 8 years under the Microsoft flag, it must be well developed by now (?), what problems could there be ?

 

All the technical guff seemed to indicate that the Athlon II x 4 630 supported virtualisation and the rest of my hardware spec easily met the technical requirements, so I activated the VM support in the BIOS and, once Windows 8.1. loaded, activated the Hyper-V (Microsoft's VM software offering) option in the add-in features menu in Programs. Re-boot and all seemed well. 

 

Long story short. I set up the  overarching VM support facilities i.e.I established CD, HDD and network adapter access and, then, installed Windows XP on its own VM. Thus far all a breeze, boding well for future installation of game apps.

 

Problems came when I set up an Ethernet switch in the overarching VM support facility and then tried to get the XP VM adapter (In software) to talk to the software representation of the  actual network adapter. Just wouldn't work. Either, when I used the "External" switch method or if I used "Internal" switch and then software "Bridged" the VM adapter with the actual network adapter - no internet capability. After an afternoon of buggering around with all the options, I then decided it might be worth reading some of the advice on the interweb, but none was really specific to this issue of the home user experience and most seemed to be angled to organisational computing and software development applications. I also discovered that Hyper-V has some serious limitations which make it unsuitable for games/sims e.g. no audio support and video restrictions - the Oracle offering, Virtualbox, was put forward as an alternative which overcame these limitations.

 

So, I downloaded that and after deselecting Hyper-V, managed to getting the Virtual Box VM running. However, I then ran into another road block, as I was unable to access the CD drive to load an OS. That's where I sit at the moment.

 

The exam questions are:-

 Is VM for the Home user, still an immature and undeveloped technology ?

 

 Is it worth pursuing for the end I described above ? - to be quite honest I could have re-partitioned the disk and set-up the new sim software and had a three course banquet in the time I've wasted on this. Or is VM really something just for professional IT departments - as usual its promoted to be all things to all men, but the implementation that I've experienced so far is a bit different.

 

Are there any well reported VM packages out there for the Home User ? - cause the stuff I've tried so far is NFFP.

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

[Osborne]

There are plenty of options out there but depends on how "home" you mean as most would consider hyper-v more than home... kvm on Linux works well with vmm for basic stuff and plenty of docs and guides. Hyper-v works ok but can be a pain to access and setup. Virtualbox used to be ok but flaky of late and not good performance. Vmware works but expensive, parallels works well on macs if you like them...

[gullyg]

I've not used hyperV on consumer windows, but on Server it's usually just a case of creating a "switch" for external use which includes a physical adaptor that can connect to the internet, was the guest OS picking up any IP at all?  I've seen really odd behaviour with some guest OSs and DHCP on the virtualised NICs which force you to set the IP manually - especially if you use the legacy NICs.

 

For virtualbox, I thought it was just a case of adding a virtual DVD device to the sata bus and then attaching it to the host's DVD drive (all within virtualbox).  But it's been a long time since I've dealt with physical media.  I use iso for everything now as with iLO you can even boot physical machines off images.

 

For most people I don't know how much virtualisation is useful especially as stuff like graphics is difficult to passthrough with a lot of hypervisors.  Although Unraid is an interesting option as it appears to be more aimed at gamers and enthusiasts.

 

I do use virtualisation at home but on a pair of HP servers (Microserver Gen 8 upgraded to i5 and a ML10 upgraded to xeon e3) rather than consumer grade kit as the hp servers are really well built, have iLO and with cashback are often cheaper.  However the virtualisation isn't for any gaming or "home" use.

 

I used to use VMWare ESXi (free) but now I run Hyper-V under Server2012r2 at home for my "production" setup and don't have any issues with it other than the lack of hardware redirection (vt-d / usb passthrough).

Under HyperV I run,

NAS:Nas4free with 2x 6tb drives passed through for ZFS serving out video/music etc via CIFS and DNLA

CCTV:MotionEye (4 hd cctv cameras) on Debian

DNS:PieHole on Debian (DNSMasq with adblocking white/blacklists)

PXE Server: Boot Server using Debian to netboot Ubuntu/Mint/Hirens etc etc

Windows 10 Pro  (for rdp): Basic install for windows admin stuff etc.

 

The main reason I switched to HyperV is ease of admin from OSX (Win RDP is brilliant) and the direct disk passthrough allowed me to consolidate two servers into one to reduce power consumption.  Plus I didn't pay for the license as I got access to free licenses through college, although it's worth noting the basic Hyper-V install is free but you need  a windows install to manage it from another machine.

 

On my "heavy duty" machine I run another install of windows server 2012r2 but with VirtualBox to virtualise server infrastructure to test software deployments etc but I use VirtualBox for the hypervisor, I've been considering moving this to ESXi or playing with something like Xen but SWMBO uses the bare metal install of server for transcoding video files as it's able to get through them faster than her laptop.

Edited 16 May, 2016 by gullyg

[Clunkclick]

Thanks for the replies.

 

As I feared, it sounds, at the moment, as if VM is not something that the  casual  home user, with low powered machine (Processor Passmark rating about 3500),  could use as an alternative to OS segregation using disk partitioning. Echoing comments above, the consensus of internet reports seems to be  that VM isn't, at present, suited to applications with a high graphics requirement, such as games.

 

From my readings since yesterday, I think I committed a basic error in the Hyper- V set-up by installing the Ethernet virtual switch after I had created the first VM - my most recent sources say it should be done before. Anyway, as an academic/awareness exercise, I'll continue to play with it to see if I can get the network switch going and then see how far I can take the games issue.

 

With obvious convenience benefits to the Home user in terms of the ease of  expanding the range of application software available to run on one machine, in the absence of commercial self-interest conflicts,  dare we  hope for extra development work in this area ?

 

Cheers

 

 

Nick

[Osborne]

Never had much luck getting Xen to work as it should on Ubuntu server... be interested to see how you go with that...

Do you have any osx vm's or just as a hypervisor os? Been trying to build one on kvm but can't get past chameleon boot prompt as it doesn't seem to recognize the hdd and none of the guides help as what they suggest doesn't work

[Clunkclick]

I've got XP and W 7 set-up and running as VMs on a W8.1 system,  with hardware access to the DVD/CD. Pedestrian Os', but that's what the Flight sim programs  specify.

 

 I know nothing of Linux. Similarly, KVM other than the skim read I've just done - KVM that's part of Unraid ? - Unraid looks just the job, run-time  user selectable OS's + user selectable hardware, unless I'm mistaken. Ideal for uniting the internet of things with the internet of data ?

 

.The problem I was having was setting-up the HDD and Ethernet access. And from the reading I've done since yesterday, I not only installed the Ethernet switch downstream of where it should have been actioned but also allocated the wrong IDE controller to the HDD - no wonder both items didn't work ! I should have read the section on Hyper-V Virtualisation in my copy of "Inside Windows 8.1" instead of winging it.

 

 

Nick

[io1901]

I run a w2012 r2 server running Hyper-V on a 1035u motherboard running Sophos utm and a win 10 VM. It's a bit underpowered and I'm considering upgrading the server to something a bit more powerful. Couldn't use Wmware as they restrict the hardware it can run on. Windows can use anything you can find a driver for.

[GentleGiant]

 Is VM for the Home user, still an immature and undeveloped technology ?

 

 Is it worth pursuing for the end I described above ? - to be quite honest I could have re-partitioned the disk and set-up the new sim software and had a three course banquet in the time I've wasted on this. Or is VM really something just for professional IT departments - as usual its promoted to be all things to all men, but the implementation that I've experienced so far is a bit different.

 

Are there any well reported VM packages out there for the Home User ? - cause the stuff I've tried so far is NFFP.

 

Nick

 

Have you tried a virtual CD drive and an ISO image of the install disk??

 

I have just started reading through the VirtualBox manual myself, so have it open in another window.

 

 

ebkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "> 5.3 The Virtual Media Manager

VirtualBox keeps track of all the hard disk, CD/DVD-ROM and floppy disk images which are

in use by virtual machines. These are often referred to as “known media” and come from two

sources:

• all media currently attached to virtual machines;

• “registered” media for compatibility with VirtualBox versions older than version 4.0. For

details about how media registration has changed with version 4.0, please refer to chapter

10.1, Where VirtualBox stores its files, page 218.

The known media can be viewed and changed in the Virtual Media Manager, which you can

access from the “File” menu in the VirtualBox main window:

The known media are conveniently grouped in three tabs for the three possible formats. These

formats are:

• Hard disk images, either in VirtualBox’s own Virtual Disk Image (VDI) format or in the

third-party formats listed in the previous chapter;

• CD/DVD images in standard ISO format;

• floppy images in standard RAW format.

As you can see in the screenshot above, for each image, the Virtual Media Manager shows you

the full path of the image file and other information, such as the virtual machine the image is

currently attached to, if any.

The Virtual Media Manager allows you to

• remove an image from the registry (and optionally delete the image file when doing so);

• “release” an image, that is, detach it from a virtual machine if it is currently attached to

one as a virtual hard disk.

Edited 17 May, 2016 by GentleGiant

[Aspman]

I've been playing around with VirtualBox at work but it doesn't work well behind an authenticating proxy.

Edited 17 May, 2016 by Aspman

[ColinD]

VM's are/can be for the home user, perhaps the power user end of the scale. If you were developing/needing repeatable environments as you are and want to run your xp machine, it makes perfect sense. Run one for banking say or other things... worth snapshotting as you make major changes to config too.

 

I have a windows 2k VM ( does not have a network connection ), runs photoshop which is paid for, but locked to that os. Hence I've carried it about for over a decade I run windows and launch vms ( virtualbox ) for testing different linux distros. OR I run linux and run linux/windows vms. The trick with vm's is having enough spare resources and giving the vm what it needs. Be that ram or disk or cpu. and they will be slower, or tend to be . 

VirtualBox is more than capable. Others like vmware, parallels all do the same sort of thing and have different pro/con lists. VirtualBox is very capable on the right hardware.

 

I've not done it, but there is with the newer intel stuff ways of passing all your gpx power through to a vm too... so that's for gamers. But you need huge hardware budget!

 

I've tended to run linux server vms up the cloud if it's quick test. Two reasons. 1. Speed, running scripted builds are far faster in a DC on a big fat internet pipe than a home network speed. and secondly despite the cost, I can create a cluster of stuff for an hour for a few dollars. Only gets expensive when I rush out and leave it all on, but equally to run a dedicated server to power say 3 or 10 vm's for an hour stress testing is just as costly and not that accurate.

 

Might not be the right fit for this post, but beyond virtual box, vm's are old skool now... drink some kool aide

 

Have a look at the overview for docker.

 

We used an early forerunner of it in the form of solaris containers... kind of fried my brain back then and I didn't really have any idea, but it worked. Docker makes sense, it sort of works on mac and windows and it's native on most linux if not all linux. The key is it's not adding the virtualization layer/overhead of another OS

 

The con is it's not native on windows or mac ( well it's sort of maybe will be Beta testing atm ).

[Osborne]

This thread has finally spurred me to look at unraid... downloaded today, so far built 6 different vms and replicated them.. no snapshot that I can find though which is not good... but otherwise so far very simple...

[Clunkclick]

With 8 meg of memory and an R7 graphics board there didn't appear to be any performance issues running the barebones VMs on my 7 year old ASUS M4 boards.

 

Any further work will have to wait till the weekend now, when hopefully some pertinent  reading material will be available.

 

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

[WookieeM]

Be interesting if the games work in a VM. Graphics power is going to be the main issue.

I've never tried to get a game running, on the basis that I think it will not work. Access from the vm to the graphics card is just not there.

If it's an old game then software rendering is an option.

Can anyone give direct feedback on having run a game in a vm?

Or spin a vm up, install a game and try, save the OP loads of time in research and pain!

[ColinD]

Not tried this as I don't have the gphx power.

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF

[DanHarper]

Windows Millenium

 

16 years ago this was a bad idea... why?! Just... why would you need such a thing! (Noticed you managed to miss Vista so you do have SOME sense) :P

[GentleGiant]

A lot of people maligned ME; but I used it and found it to be very good. A lot of the features in XP were first trialled in ME and it was VERY stable (as long as the 3rd party software writers werent naughty). I ran it on various machines for years - mostly to keep old DOS and Win95 childrens games going for nursery - and never suffered from any crashes.

 

I still have a copy and may be trying to run a dual boot with Win7 64 Pro on my daughters PC to get some old "Spot", "Rosie and Jim", "Tots TV", and Rainbow Fish" games running properly.

[gullyg]

A lot of people maligned ME; but I used it and found it to be very good. A lot of the features in XP were first trialled in ME and it was VERY stable (as long as the 3rd party software writers werent naughty). I ran it on various machines for years - mostly to keep old DOS and Win95 childrens games going for nursery - and never suffered from any crashes.

I still have a copy and may be trying to run a dual boot with Win7 64 Pro on my daughters PC to get some old "Spot", "Rosie and Jim", "Tots TV", and Rainbow Fish" games running properly.

Funny how people's impression of Windows is.

From memory

98 was dreadful until 98se

2000 was pretty good but didn't support wifi

XP wasn't great until sp1

Vista was fine as long as you gave it a decent pc and not some cheap crap sold with it (cough "vista ready") without enough memory.

7 was fine

8 was poor until 8.1 but is imho better than 7 if you ignore the full screen start menu

10 is lovely apart from the reporting to Microsoft and "apps" on the start menu.

The amusing thing with old windows and virtualisation is giving them "massive" amounts of ram (512mb) or loads of cores (2) and whatch them carp themselves.

Edited 29 May, 2016 by gullyg

[cheezemonkhai]

Is virtualbox still around?

[dbg400]

Is virtualbox still around?

Yes, and it now (finally in version 5) supports USB 3. I use it both at home & work after using VMware Workstation & then Server for quite a few years. A mix of Windows on Linux, Linux on Windows and Linux on Linux. In my experience it has a very minimal footprint and I get very good performance on the VMs themselves.

[Dean-]

Depending on what you are wanting to do Docker is very good!