Linux 5.15 KVM Defaults To The New x86 TDP MMU, Enables AMD SVM 5-Level Paging

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 5.15 KVM Defaults To The New x86 TDP MMU, Enables AMD SVM 5-Level Paging

The Linux 5.15 Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) changes this cycle are quite exciting on the x86 (x86_64) front with several prominent additions...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.15-KVM

[uid313]

KVM/QEMU vs Hyper-V vs VirtualBox vs Xen vs VMware vs Intel Cloud Hypervisor?

Which one is the best one?

[OneTimeShot]

KVM/QEMU vs Hyper-V vs VirtualBox vs Xen vs VMware vs Intel Cloud Hypervisor?

Which one is the best one?

Define your criteria, I guess. Xen is pretty much dead. VMWare is kind-of legacy corporate stuff. VirtualBox has a nice GUI. HyperV is Windows. Dunno about Intel's thing.

[pipe13]

Define your criteria, I guess. Xen is pretty much dead. VMWare is kind-of legacy corporate stuff. VirtualBox has a nice GUI. HyperV is Windows. Dunno about Intel's thing.

VirtualBox does have a nice gui, and is relatively simple to use. VirtualBox also takes (or took a few years ago) about a 30% performance hit. I used it then, and it worked well. No real complaints.

Since then I've moved to KVM/QEMU and libvirt. They too have a nice gui by way of Virtual Machine Manager. Virtual Machine Manager is not quite as simple as VirtualBox. Another GUI option for KVM/QEMU libvirt is Gnome-Boxes, which appears to be even simpler than even VirtualBox. I would have used it yesterday, except I wanted to provision my VMs on a dedicated LVM partition and Gnome-Boxes, although simpler, was a bit too simple to do that. So I stayed with Virtual Machine Manager and a bit of prior manual LVM configuration.

Installed CentOS Stream 8 and Windows 10 VMs on my new Vermeer system, with Western Digital SN850 Black nvme drive. They are "comfortably quick."

If you just want to quickly set up a basic VM with everything default, I'd try Gnome-Boxes. But VirtualBox has a lot of fans, and a large online user base. You won't go wrong there either.

[linner]

KVM/QEMU vs Hyper-V vs VirtualBox vs Xen vs VMware vs Intel Cloud Hypervisor?

Which one is the best one?

I use QEMU for almost everything because it's the most open, flexible, and standard on Linux. I will very occasionally run VirtualBox for its limited Windows 3D guest acceleration but wish I didn't have to do that.

I don't trust any of the other products, especially closed-source like VMware. VMware was the stuff back in the day though. I was in the pre-release test group before it was ever released. Hyper-V is Windows and I'm not crazy enough to run Windows hosts. Xen was killed once KVM arrived. Never heard of Intel Cloud Hypervisor.

[partcyborg]

Once I figured out how to use qemu for doing pci passthrough of my GPU to play Windows games from Linux, I stopped bothering with the likes of virtualbox/vmware

[uid313]

Never heard of Intel Cloud Hypervisor.

It is a rather new hypervisor written in Rust.

BSD also have the bhyve hypervisor.

Once I figured out how to use qemu for doing pci passthrough of my GPU to play Windows games from Linux, I stopped bothering with the likes of virtualbox/vmware

So QEMU has support for PCI passthrough but it is not enabled by default and not user-friendly, while VirtualBox is more user friendly and is easier to setup with PCI passthrough?

[Random_Jerk]

So QEMU has support for PCI passthrough but it is not enabled by default and not user-friendly, while VirtualBox is more user friendly and is easier to setup with PCI passthrough?

I don't think Virtualbox has GPU passthrough support. There is no enabling by default for QEMU/VFIO. You need to configure what PCI devices you want to passthrough to the VM. For Linux VMs, Qemu/VFIO is the best, as you get decent hardware accerelation wtih Virgl or passthrough a GPU. For Windows, you can use GPU passthrogh and build gaming VMs like how I do. I run absolute monstrous games like Microsoft Flight Simulator on the VM and it works like a champ. If you get a hang of Qemu/VFIO, its is an indispensible tool for your VM needs. Coming from the Virtualbox world, its jarring in the beginning, but once you get a hang of it, then you can easily use it to your advantage.

[BingoNightly]

Since then I've moved to KVM/QEMU and libvirt. They too have a nice gui by way of Virtual Machine Manager. Virtual Machine Manager is not quite as simple as VirtualBox. Another GUI option for KVM/QEMU libvirt is Gnome-Boxes, which appears to be even simpler than even VirtualBox. I would have used it yesterday, except I wanted to provision my VMs on a dedicated LVM partition and Gnome-Boxes, although simpler, was a bit too simple to do that. So I stayed with Virtual Machine Manager and a bit of prior manual LVM configuration.

Cockpit is another visual-based KVM management component, albeit in a web application. Makes running a virtualization server easier and easier with each update.

[partcyborg]

It is a rather new hypervisor written in Rust.

BSD also have the bhyve hypervisor.


So QEMU has support for PCI passthrough but it is not enabled by default and not user-friendly, while VirtualBox is more user friendly and is easier to setup with PCI passthrough?

As far as I am aware, virtualbox does not support pci passthrough. Vmware does not either unless you buy expensive commercial hardware and licensing.

Of course pci passthrough is not "enabled by default" because this is effectively impossible. Passing through a device requires it to be completely unaddressed by the host os (accomplished usually by binding the device id to the vfio-pci kernel module) which isn't usually what you want