How to Get Started Using Virtual Machine Manager in Linux (Posted in response to Virtual box and VMware)
How to Get Started Using Virtual Machine Manager in Linux (Posted in response to Virtual box and VMware)
Virtual Machine Manager is one of the best hypervisors available for the Linux desktop. It takes virtualization on your Linux desktop to the next level.
If you run Windows make sure to install the virtio drivers
(Posted in response to Virtual box and VMware)
What? Is there some new controversy going on ?
Oh, people recommend VirtualBox all the time and it's awful.
Ah well, I've used Virtualbox, Vmware and KVM and I found them all useful for my purposes. Vmware is very slick and has an edge on easy Gfx acceleration for Windows guests but since they're now owned by Broadcom that might become a problem.
I'm happy with Virtualbox on my desktop and KVM on a few servers. I don't really care to take sides.
Is there an equivalent or something similar to "Use host i/o cache" that VirtualBox have? Last time I tried virt-manager the install time of the vm was incredibly slow because of the terrible write speed to my hdd. Vbox fixes that issue with the host i/o cache setting.
I think proxmox or qemu might interest you https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Performance_Tweaks#Disk_Cache
Qemu https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Performance_Tweaks#Disk_Cache
Usually setting the cache mode to "none" gives the best performance, assuming you're using the virtio interface, instead of SATA/SCSI. This is a common mistake most newbies make when installing Windows, because virt-manager defaults to the latter, which gives poor perfomance. The same goes for the network btw, you'd want to use the virtio network interface instead of the emulated NIC. So before you install a Windows guest, make sure you change both those interfaces.
After changing the hardware interfaces, what you'd need to do (with Windows guests) is you'd need to supply the [virtio drivers](https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-pkg-scripts/blob/master/README.md, which you'll need to provided to the Windows setup (via the virtio driver ISO) when prompted.
But if you've already installed Windows, you'll need to install all the virtio drivers first and then update the interfaces after you've powered off the VM.
And in case you were wondering, this isn't an issue with Linux guests, since virt-manager defaults to virtio hardware, and drivers aren't an issue either.