Make VM moar powerful?
-
Asking for a friend.
He runs Win10, and also a VM of Linux to practice doing programming or something.
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Effectively, he wanted the host to go into some sort of low power mode, and dedicate as much resources as possible to the VM.
I wasn't sure if that was possible, since if the host goes into low power mode, there isn't resources for the VM?
The only thing I could think of was telling him to turn off a bunch of services and shit on Win10 to free up bits and hertz.
Then again, I know nothing about VM management. So there's that.
-
@Lorne-Kates Maybe you can assign the VM process a higher priority somewhere?
-
@Lorne-Kates
At the end of the day, if the host isn't doing anything else, a Hyper-V host is only going to skim 0.5-1GB of RAM and minimal CPU and disk cycles. You really don't want to try to micromanage the host.If the Linux guest is performing poorly, the most likely source of the problem is bad native disk driver support for a Hyper-V host. Microsoft has supported and maintained drivers for RHEL, which do install and work on CentOS or other downstream distributions. Last I knew they were not supporting Debian based distros, though that may have changed over the past 1.5 years since I futzed with trying to cajole Linux into working on Hyper-V.
If VirtualBox or straight up ESXi is an option, the Linux support will be a lot better.
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Yeah, there is. Stop fucking around with VMs and set his box up to dual boot.
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
VM of Linux to practice doing programming or something.
Is it possible to use the Linux for
WorkgroupsWindows subsystem instead? It'd have a heckuva lot less resource consumption (but I'm not sure how well it works unfortunately)
-
Use Docker
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Asking for a friend.
He runs Win10, and also a VM of Linux to practice doing programming or something.
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Effectively, he wanted the host to go into some sort of low power mode, and dedicate as much resources as possible to the VM.
I wasn't sure if that was possible, since if the host goes into low power mode, there isn't resources for the VM?
The only thing I could think of was telling him to turn off a bunch of services and shit on Win10 to free up bits and hertz.
Then again, I know nothing about VM management. So there's that.
I do that same basic thing on my primary development rig. I tried Hyper-V a few times and thought it was total shit. Hyper-V is not nearly immersive enough for real work, in my opinion.
But, with that being said, he should be able to make it work if that is what he wants to use. What it sounds like to me is that he is running in to resource contention somewhere. He needs to resolve that issue. The host should be using minimal resources provided he does not have a lot of active processes running. Shut down web browsers, chat programs, etc., on the host. The host will only use what it needs, just like with any other situation.
As for the resource contention, if he wants adequate performance or better, he needs to throw some horsepower at the issue. My primary development rig is 8 cores, 32GB of RAM and runs on all SSDs. I give the Linux development VM four cores and up to 16GB of RAM when it is running. It rarely uses half that.
Hyper-V is shit, in my opinion, because it is still a windowed environment within Windows. There is no full screen, immersive, option. I run VMWare Workstation for virtualizing Linux dev environments because it is completely immersive. It is not cheap though. Much more than someone would spend for a learning or hobby project.
The thing I love about Workstation is that it natively supports multiple monitors. I can full screen a VM on 1-3 monitors. If I am trying to minimize distractions, I span all monitors. If I need to leave email or something else open, I span across two and leave one monitor for Windows, so I do not have to sign in to all my services in the Linux VM also.
Before I switched over to VMWare Workstation, I used VMWare Server. Which, although not as immersive as Workstation, is better than Hyper-V. (I despise Hyper-V, in case it is not readily apparent). VMWare Server is free, but has not had a release since 2009 and I have not used it since probably 2010-2011. I may be forgetting some pitfalls there. YMMV, etc.
I seem to remember it working reasonably well, and I believe that it can run full screen.
There is also Virtual Box, which I have never used.
If he is running out of resources though, he probably just needs to throw horsepower at the issue. Open Resource Monitor and leave it running in the background, see where his performance issues are and upgrade that piece of the puzzle. Lather, rinse, repeat until he has adequate performance.
Or, just throw together a cheap quad core machine and load Linux on it. Scour Craigslist and see what he can find. That would certainly solve the problem of two OS's competing for one set of hardware.
-
@flabdablet said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Yeah, there is. Stop fucking around with VMs and set his box up to dual boot.
It's a laptop. I THINK he's learning some programming something in the guest, but also has web browser open on host. I'm guessing rebooting would be a pain if it's just casual "I've got a few minutes, Imma gonna practice Linux" thing.
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
I THINK he's learning some programming something in the guest, but also has web browser open on host.
Fair enough. Linux is not yet ready for the desktop, so it's clearly completely incapable of running anything as complicated as a web browser.
-
@Polygeekery Hyper-V is fine for headless IMO but otherwise I use VirtualBox as it's free unlike VMWare Workstation.
At home I now just dual boot Windows 10 with Linux. At work it's OS X host with Linux and Windows in VMs.
-
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
VMWare Server is free, but has not had a release since 2009 and I have not used it since probably 2010-2011.
VMware Player should also work, and it definitely has fullscreen (not so sure about multiple monitor support).
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
I THINK he's learning some programming something in the guest, but also has web browser open on host.
He needs to stop that. The host gets served first, the guest gets the scraps, when it comes to resources. Even a few Chrome tabs can chew up a GB or two of memory in these modern days of JS frameworks and 500MB payloads for webpages.
-
@flabdablet said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Yeah, there is. Stop fucking around with VMs and set his box up to dual boot.
Three words: dynamic disk expansion. I much prefer keeping rarely used systems in VMs, since I don't have to carve out disk space for them until they actually need it. And no, faffing around with partition managers that may or may not work is not an option.
-
@flabdablet said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Yeah, there is. Stop fucking around with VMs and set his box up to dual boot.
I would have to disagree with you there. Virtualization is immensely helpful with the learning process because snapshots give you the freedom to experiment. Take a snapshot, fuck around and do whatever you wish, and if it goes sideways revert to that snapshot.
-
@Polygeekery Depending what he's learning, he might find it more useful to use a cloud provider like c9 than to run a VM on his own workstation. C9 is free, or he can sink some money into DO if he wants
-
@Yamikuronue said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Polygeekery Depending what he's learning, he might find it more useful to use a cloud provider like c9 than to run a VM on his own workstation. C9 is free, or he can sink some money into DO if he wants
Good call.
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Effectively, he wanted the host to go into some sort of low power mode, and dedicate as much resources as possible to the VM.
I wasn't sure if that was possible, since if the host goes into low power mode, there isn't resources for the VM?I'm using the same setup, with Windows host + linux guest.
There's nothing special you can do with host, other than make sure you don't have too much shit running in background.
Here's what you CAN do to speed things up:
- Assign all CPU-s to the guest
- Give it as much RAM as you can
- Keep the VM image on a dedicated SSD (not the same SSD as Windows)
- Install guest additions
- Pick a guest desktop that doesn't use 3D acceleration (xfce, lxde, older KDE?). 3D support in VirtualBox is buggy as fuck, and should be turned off
-
@Yamikuronue said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Depending what he's learning, he might find it more useful to use a cloud provider like c9 than to run a VM on his own workstation.
Someday I should learn about how to set up and manage VMs.
-
@cartman82 said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Keep the VM image on a dedicated SSD (not the same SSD as Windows)
Yes
-
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@cartman82 said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Keep the VM image on a dedicated SSD (not the same SSD as Windows)
Yed
Yes, even. Sometimes even YASSS!!!
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Sometimes even YASSS!!!
Meg Ryan's fake orgasm from "When Harry Met Sally" – 02:53
— olneythelonely
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Yes, even. Sometimes even YASSS!!!
Yass Cat (Original Vine) – 00:07
— Best Videos
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
It's a laptop.
Well, there's the problem.
Unless he's got a high-end laptop, he probably doesn't have the RAM/CPU horsepower needed to do anything serious in a VM.
Although, a VM is just another program running in Windows, so, he should be able to just configure the VM to use as much RAM/CPU/Disk as possible and his Linux shouldn't run any worse than anything else on his 2004 Packard-Bell laptop.
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@cartman82 said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Keep the VM image on a dedicated SSD (not the same SSD as Windows)
Yed
Yes, even. Sometimes even YASSS!!!
Fucking autocorrect, how did it do that?
-
@Lorne-Kates said in Make VM moar powerful?:
He asked me if there was a way he could tell Windows 10 to "stop using so much computer resources", and instead assign all those resources to the VM.
Effectively, he wanted the host to go into some sort of low power mode, and dedicate as much resources as possible to the VM.This was an option years ago, but cannot guarantee if it will not eat your drive nowadays:
-
@El_Heffe said in Make VM moar powerful?:
2004 Packard-Bell laptop.
Had one of those. It wasn't bad per se, but if you plan to run VMs on it, make sure you don't hold it on your lap. Unless you're absolutely sure you'll never want kids...
As a bonus WTF, I found a review of said laptop.
70%: This rating is bad. Most notebooks are better rated.
Um, guys, I think it means your rating scale isn't calibrated very well.
Filed under: inb4 "it's not from 2004"
-
@Maciejasjmj said in Make VM moar powerful?:
As a bonus WTF, I found a review of said laptop.
70%: This rating is bad. Most notebooks are better rated.
Um, guys, I think it means your rating scale isn't calibrated very well.
-
@Gąska said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Maciejasjmj said in Make VM moar powerful?:
As a bonus WTF, I found a review of said laptop.
70%: This rating is bad. Most notebooks are better rated.
Um, guys, I think it means your rating scale isn't calibrated very well.
I personally am dubious of 5-star ratings. Specially when it comes to movies and books, because of the fandom phenomenon. Much prefer to read some text from critics that in the past have aligned myself with them (almost same taste).
-
@dse the problem with reading reviews is that they often contain spoilers.
-
@dse said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Much prefer to read some text from critics that in the past have aligned myself with them (almost same taste).
In Germany, a great way to find good movies and books is to do the exact opposite of what the Spiegel (a weekly magazine) review says. They're absolutely wrong on almost everything.
-
@dse said in Make VM moar powerful?:
I personally am dubious of 5-star ratings. Specially when it comes to movies and books, because of the fandom phenomenon. Much prefer to read some text from critics that in the past have aligned myself with them (almost same taste).
It's like buying stuff online. First you have to read some good and bad reviews to find out specific things that may or may not actually affect you (e.g. "the phone uses an usb-c connector and I don't like it - 1 star!" or "the keyboard layout is set to Russian and can't be changed"). Then the percentage of bad reviews (less than 4 stars) just tends to indicate the probability of getting a faulty item rather than its design quality.
-
@anonymous234 said in Make VM moar powerful?:
First you have to read some good and bad reviews
^ This. Actually reading the bad reviews on Amazon is more important than anything else. If they are ridiculous complaints or if they simply state that the product they received was DOA (so what? send it back, you idiot!), then I don't care. Actual flaws or long-term durability issues (product immediately breaks after the warranty has expired) are what I want to avoid.
-
@asdf said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@dse said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Much prefer to read some text from critics that in the past have aligned myself with them (almost same taste).
In Germany, a great way to find good movies and books is to do the exact opposite of what the Spiegel (a weekly magazine) review says. They're absolutely wrong on almost everything.
I have the same policy with HuffPo, Salon, Slate and The Atlantic.
-
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
I have the same policy with HuffPo, Salon, Slate and The Atlantic.
The interesting thing is that the same magazine often has well-researched, interesting articles. But whoever writes their reviews has a really shitty taste. (And, as always, it's best to avoid the opinion pieces.)
-
@asdf said in Make VM moar powerful?:
But whoever writes their reviews has a really shitty taste.
What's interesting is that some reviewers change. They start being all high-brow and then they have some sort of epiphany and realise that the stuff that the public likes is often really good, but they're looking for something a bit different to what the reviewer was.
-
@dkf said in Make VM moar powerful?:
They start being all high-brow and then they have some sort of epiphany and realise that the stuff that the public likes is often really good, but they're looking for something a bit different to what the reviewer was.
De gustibus non est disputandum. I disliked a lot of popular movies in the last two decades as well, since it's become more and more popular to hide a non-existing or contradictory storyline with special effects. Which is fine for superhero movies and Bruce Willis flicks, but not for movies which pretend to be intelligent or have some deep meaning. Inception, for example, was a disaster if you ask me.
However, it's still funny how the Spiegel always seems to focus on the exact opposite of what makes a certain genre enjoyable, and base their review on that.
-
@Polygeekery Hyper-V does have an immersive mode for Windows 8 and higher. No luck for Linux or previous version of Windows.
HOWEVER, there is a trick for that. Just use mstsc to connect to the VM and set it to use all screens. Works quite well, although there are no shortcuts to leave the host (like Ctrl+alt in VMware or right Ctrl in virtual box).
All in all, Hyper-V is great for Windows virtualization, especially 8+.
-
@HardwareGeek said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Yamikuronue said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Depending what he's learning, he might find it more useful to use a cloud provider like c9 than to run a VM on his own workstation.
Someday I should learn about how to set up and manage VMs.
Yup.
-
@kt_ said in Make VM moar powerful?:
HOWEVER, there is a trick for that. Just use mstsc to connect to the VM and set it to use all screens. Works quite well, although there are no shortcuts to leave the host (like Ctrl+alt in VMware or right Ctrl in virtual box).
Yeah, but that does fuck-all to help with Linux guests, and that is what I use virtualization on my desktop for. If there were a Linux-Windows version of something RDP-like that I could use that worked as well as RDP I would probably just use that.
But also, one of my frequent use cases is to have two monitors dedicated to Linux and one still displaying Windows.
-
@asdf said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@dse said in Make VM moar powerful?:
Much prefer to read some text from critics that in the past have aligned myself with them (almost same taste).
In Germany, a great way to find good movies and books is to do the exact opposite of what the Spiegel (a weekly magazine) review says. They're absolutely wrong on almost everything.
I'm the U.S. but I've been doing the opposite of reviews pretty much forever, and have discovered quite a lot of good music and movies in the process.
-
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@kt_ said in Make VM moar powerful?:
HOWEVER, there is a trick for that. Just use mstsc to connect to the VM and set it to use all screens. Works quite well, although there are no shortcuts to leave the host (like Ctrl+alt in VMware or right Ctrl in virtual box).
Yeah, but that does fuck-all to help with Linux guests, and that is what I use virtualization on my desktop for. If there were a Linux-Windows version of something RDP-like that I could use that worked as well as RDP I would probably just use that.
But also, one of my frequent use cases is to have two monitors dedicated to Linux and one still displaying Windows.
I don't know what you mean by Linux-Windows version of RDP, but you can RDP into Windows from Linux.
-
@kt_ AFAIK, you cannot do it the other way around.
INB4
-
@Polygeekery
Clearly you just need to set up the SSH Tunnel over the ISDN VPN connection to do X.11 forwarding, and Bob's your uncle!(Yeah, the Year of the Linux Desktop is gonna forever be 1 more year over the horizon, until something like systemd comes to the UI side of the house. Which would be great for
value, but probably not so great for actual adoption any time in the next 20 years.)
-
Windows 10 Reportedly Adding a Game Mode That Would Improve Game Performance
Windows 10 users may be receiving a feature that helps their PC games to run better.
Twitter user WalkingCat reports the addition of a dll called "gamemode" in the latest build of Windows 10 (version 14997). A subsequent tweet notes it "looks like Windows will adjust its resource allocation logic (for CPU/[graphics] etc.)" for the purpose of prioritizing game performance.
And I, for one, cannot imagine WalkingCat lying to us.
-
@Polygeekery said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@kt_ said in Make VM moar powerful?:
HOWEVER, there is a trick for that. Just use mstsc to connect to the VM and set it to use all screens. Works quite well, although there are no shortcuts to leave the host (like Ctrl+alt in VMware or right Ctrl in virtual box).
Yeah, but that does fuck-all to help with Linux guests, and that is what I use virtualization on my desktop for. If there were a Linux-Windows version of something RDP-like that I could use that worked as well as RDP I would probably just use that.
But also, one of my frequent use cases is to have two monitors dedicated to Linux and one still displaying Windows.
xrdp is almost passable, but building from source can be a pain...
GitHub - neutrinolabs/xrdp: xrdp: an open source RDP server
xrdp: an open source RDP server. Contribute to neutrinolabs/xrdp development by creating an account on GitHub.
I've had a fair amount of success on certain distros using scaryglider's automagic build script:
X11RDP-o-Matic Information - Scarygliders
NOTE: I am no longer actively spending days/hours of my time to maintain this script – there are too many different variations of Linux Distributions and they come out so frequently and always include changes in the way they do things, that it became utterly Continue reading X11RDP-o-Matic...
-
@Tsaukpaetra Depends on the distro...
$ apt-cache search xrdp xrdp - Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) server
-
@loopback0 said in Make VM moar powerful?:
@Tsaukpaetra Depends on the distro...
$ apt-cache search xrdp xrdp - Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) serverAh, but most distros don't offer an up-to-date (as much as can be applied to that project) version. Most ones I tried were so old Windows 7's MSTSC complained about it being so insecure it's all boinced.
