17 ms·

I am currently dual booting between Arch Linux and Windows 10. Moving to something like this one day makes me conflicted. On one hand I feel like I would betra

by kozikow 10y ago

I am currently dual booting between Arch Linux and Windows 10. Moving to something like this one day makes me conflicted. On one hand I feel like I would betray open source, on the other hand I wouldn't have to restart my machine to play games...

Longhanks 10y ago
If your hardware supports it, you may be able to pull a 180 and run a Windows VM on the bare metal using hardware passthrough. There's a great community here: https://www.reddit.com/r/vfio https://www.reddit.com/r/vfio
- Kenji 10y ago
  Wow, that works? Video games are pretty much the last thing that holds me on Windows. Everything else is solved on Linux. I am very interested in any solution for this problem.
  - chrisper 10y ago
    It works, but it requires some time investment. Not everyone has the same quirks, so you will have to play around a lot and try to find the cause of different issues. Totally worth it imho. It allowed me to go Full Linux
  - gcb0 10y ago
    same. is this a selective process? i mean, can I allow access to my video card and but still not to the rest of the CPU/memory/storage?
    - wtallis 10y ago
      Yes. Most Intel CPUs from the past decade have supported hardware virtualization extensions (VT-x) that allow for efficient virtual machines, where the host system allocates CPU time and memory much as it would for an ordinary userspace process. Select Intel CPUs also support an IOMMU extension (VT-d) that allows PCIe devices to be virtually isolated from the host system; effectively, the device's DMA goes in to the VM's memory space instead of the host system's memory space. This can be done on a per-device granularity. It allows the OS in the VM to access the device exactly the same way it would if the OS were running on bare metal, so no driver changes are necessary. Storage for VMs is still primarily emulated rather than virtualized, but you can use VT-d to grant a VM exclusive access to a HBA or RAID card or NVMe SSD, because VT-d works for any type of PCIe device.
      - walterbell 10y ago
        e.g. with Xen (and probably ESXi/KVM?), it is possible to run FreeNAS in a VM with PCI passthrough of the storage controller, pfSense in a VM with PCI passthrough of physical NICs (or bridge to virtual NICs), Windows in a VM with a dedicated GPU, and Linux or OpenBSD in yet other VMs, all on one "desktop" that consolidates clients/firewall/NAS. If you get the right hardware, BIOS and PCI devices.
  - uabstraction 10y ago
    It works, but you need to cherry-pick the hardware. I've seen GTA V running smoothly IN A VM with this configuration. The CPU must support VT-d, which my i7-4770k sadly doesn't. You also need a second GPU to use with the host operating system (nVidia Optimus for laptop users doesn't cut it).
  - socmag 10y ago
    Serious general open question here. It strikes me as odd that on the one hand you say you want to ditch windows in favor of FOSS, but then go on to say that you use Windows just to play games. The interesting thing is that games are some of the most costly and closed source things in software today. Windows costs the price of two games or less. Further, if you own a PlayStation, an XBox it's likely you have spent hundreds of dollars on closed source games. If you bought a fancy graphics card, would you expect that to be free as well? I love FOSS software as much a as the next person, but people who write software do have to live. Like game developers, employees of NVIDIA, even the people who make the Arch Linux distribution. I'm truly not picking on you or FOSS, I just find it hard to rationalize FOSS zealotry that is almost universally hypocritical to some degree. Even Linus gets $10m a year or something like that. I'm not even sure to be honest what FOSS software IS any more. It's a serious question, because I'm really confused.
    - iamdave 10y ago
      I didn't pick up many hints that they were using Linux purely because FOSS, that seems like a projection?; personally I went entirely Linux because I'm fond of the nearly infinitely granular controls I can make over the UI and UX (plus a few system level things) that I can share with others, get improvements on and reiterate into my daily use. Perhaps there's a similar trend here to the user you're responding to; I am merely speaking out of anecdote.
      - socmag 10y ago
        Aside from the other comment where I hope I pointed out the reasoning.. The "Betray Open Source" bit. You might be right that there is some projection. I've been working on a project for quite some time now, without any pay and it is close to completion, and I more and more frequently reflect on how it should be positioned, marketed and ultimately generate some revenue so that I can actually afford my own apartment. When I read HN I see this tension. Something comes out and the comments will be. Oh that's cool but fuck you, it's not FOSS but at the same time I see yay, another gadget I will immediately go and buy. You just can't win. I develop on Linux mostly and Windows occasionally, and I've more than paid my dues to the community over the years, but at some point hard decisions have to be made. FOSS is great when you have enough cash stashed to not give a damn or you are just doing it as a hobby. I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun no matter which business model I choose sometimes, and it pains me to have to make a decision, and neither one looks pleasant.
  - rvern 10y ago
    Why not just stop playing video games? There's a universal consensus that they're a waste of time anyway, no? I mean this seriously because it is my first thought when someone claims not to be able to switch to GNU/Linux because of games.
    - ferbivore 10y ago
      Why not just stop browsing Hacker News/hanging out with friends/working on side projects/trying to use Linux? There's a universal consensus that it's a waste of time anyway, no? Video games are fun.
- virtuallynathan 10y ago
  I do this, works great. Get >95% of native perf out of my GTX1070.
  - beefsack 10y ago
    You need to run separate GPUs to achieve this though don't you?
    - icecreammatt 10y ago
      You can run your host OS using the integrated graphics and assign the dedicated card to the Windows VM
      - colemickens 10y ago
        I'm having a hard time finding any information about that. Anything you can point me to? Ideally, I'd like to use 2x1080 (sli) with Windows KVM guest and then use the integrated graphics for Linux host.
        unexistance 10y ago
        google keyword : GPU passthrough https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3lno0t/gpu_passthrough_revisited_an_updated_guide_on_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3lno0t/gpu_pa...
        colemickens 10y ago
        Thanks! I've read up since the last post. Now I'm trying to decide if I can live without SLI.
        icecreammatt 10y ago
        The guide linked above was the same one I used. Honestly it took me quite a while to get it all working. I had to buy a separate soundcard since I wasn't able to get the one on the motherboard to pass through the audio correctly without static noise in it. Once I got the HTC Vive I ended up just going back to a dedicated Windows install and built a separate machine just for Linux stuff. Saved me lots of headache.
- Lord_Zane 10y ago
  Id love to do this, since I pretty much just need league of legends support. Only problem is, its a vm. How would windows 10 licensing thing work?
  - swiley 10y ago
    Windows 10 licencing from dream spark seems to work in qemu-kvm. Idk how normal Windows 10 works with that, I only use it to run the occasional required software for class.
- mastax 10y ago
  http://vfio.blogspot.com/ http://vfio.blogspot.com/ is another good resource for this. The hardware recommendations will become outdated over time, but otherwise it's great.
- chme 10y ago
  That is the right way to do this. I would really love if Qubes OS would support that, but it's not quite there yet.
briansteffens 10y ago
Or you could just only play Linux games. I mean sure, you'll eventually get tired of Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of Mordor. But when that happens you can just play Shadow of Mordor.
- tormeh 10y ago
  Hehe, there's actually a pretty decent amount of games for Linux these days, but if you're an enthusiast then it's not enough.
  - briansteffens 10y ago
    Yeah I was exaggerating a bit, I find plenty of games to play. If you're not too picky about which game you play, you can find a lot of good games. It's when all your friends are playing something specific and telling you to play it with them but it's Windows only that you feel the pain and are tempted to reboot into Windows :)
    - herbst 10y ago
      simply dont have a windows to reboot into. problem solved
- nyolfen 10y ago
  anecdotal, but about 2/3 of the games in my steam library had linux versions available when i switched to desktop linux a couple of years ago. granted, i'm not exactly a aaa title kind of guy
  - yohoho22 10y ago
    Looks like they're up around 25% overall, just comparing these two catalog filters that (mostly) exclude DLC: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=win http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=win 2644 games for Linux, and 10750 results for Windows. There's a good deal of high-profile stuff, but Linux support definitely does skew toward the indie side of things.
2bitencryption 10y ago
Just take the Linus Torvalds school of open-source philosophy and don't give a shit whether your software is open source, closed source, free, or $299. Just use good software that makes you happy.
freekh 10y ago
Exactly the same for me! Got bash for Windows up and running with i3 on vcsrt. Ff is running in i3 and it is relatively smooth (I have a beefy specs). Almost all my settings have been ported. However, emacs is struggling because of some weird issue not going fullscreen and there's lots of issues with other execs (GUI in particular) because of dbus (I think)... There's also a super annoying issue with the windows button which I normally use as meta key for i3....
ZoomZoomZoom 10y ago
I suppose by open source you mean free software (because I can't see how you can betray software development methodology by switching OSes). If this is so, than do you understand how silly your alternative sounds? It feels almost like a sarcasm.

by kozikow 10y ago

Longhanks 10y ago

If your hardware supports it, you may be able to pull a 180 and run a Windows VM on the bare metal using hardware passthrough. There's a great community here: https://www.reddit.com/r/vfio https://www.reddit.com/r/vfio

Kenji 10y ago
Wow, that works? Video games are pretty much the last thing that holds me on Windows. Everything else is solved on Linux. I am very interested in any solution for this problem.
- chrisper 10y ago
  It works, but it requires some time investment. Not everyone has the same quirks, so you will have to play around a lot and try to find the cause of different issues. Totally worth it imho. It allowed me to go Full Linux
- gcb0 10y ago
  same. is this a selective process? i mean, can I allow access to my video card and but still not to the rest of the CPU/memory/storage?
  - wtallis 10y ago
    Yes. Most Intel CPUs from the past decade have supported hardware virtualization extensions (VT-x) that allow for efficient virtual machines, where the host system allocates CPU time and memory much as it would for an ordinary userspace process. Select Intel CPUs also support an IOMMU extension (VT-d) that allows PCIe devices to be virtually isolated from the host system; effectively, the device's DMA goes in to the VM's memory space instead of the host system's memory space. This can be done on a per-device granularity. It allows the OS in the VM to access the device exactly the same way it would if the OS were running on bare metal, so no driver changes are necessary. Storage for VMs is still primarily emulated rather than virtualized, but you can use VT-d to grant a VM exclusive access to a HBA or RAID card or NVMe SSD, because VT-d works for any type of PCIe device.
    - walterbell 10y ago
      e.g. with Xen (and probably ESXi/KVM?), it is possible to run FreeNAS in a VM with PCI passthrough of the storage controller, pfSense in a VM with PCI passthrough of physical NICs (or bridge to virtual NICs), Windows in a VM with a dedicated GPU, and Linux or OpenBSD in yet other VMs, all on one "desktop" that consolidates clients/firewall/NAS. If you get the right hardware, BIOS and PCI devices.
- uabstraction 10y ago
  It works, but you need to cherry-pick the hardware. I've seen GTA V running smoothly IN A VM with this configuration. The CPU must support VT-d, which my i7-4770k sadly doesn't. You also need a second GPU to use with the host operating system (nVidia Optimus for laptop users doesn't cut it).
- socmag 10y ago
  Serious general open question here. It strikes me as odd that on the one hand you say you want to ditch windows in favor of FOSS, but then go on to say that you use Windows just to play games. The interesting thing is that games are some of the most costly and closed source things in software today. Windows costs the price of two games or less. Further, if you own a PlayStation, an XBox it's likely you have spent hundreds of dollars on closed source games. If you bought a fancy graphics card, would you expect that to be free as well? I love FOSS software as much a as the next person, but people who write software do have to live. Like game developers, employees of NVIDIA, even the people who make the Arch Linux distribution. I'm truly not picking on you or FOSS, I just find it hard to rationalize FOSS zealotry that is almost universally hypocritical to some degree. Even Linus gets $10m a year or something like that. I'm not even sure to be honest what FOSS software IS any more. It's a serious question, because I'm really confused.
  - iamdave 10y ago
    I didn't pick up many hints that they were using Linux purely because FOSS, that seems like a projection?; personally I went entirely Linux because I'm fond of the nearly infinitely granular controls I can make over the UI and UX (plus a few system level things) that I can share with others, get improvements on and reiterate into my daily use. Perhaps there's a similar trend here to the user you're responding to; I am merely speaking out of anecdote.
    - socmag 10y ago
      Aside from the other comment where I hope I pointed out the reasoning.. The "Betray Open Source" bit. You might be right that there is some projection. I've been working on a project for quite some time now, without any pay and it is close to completion, and I more and more frequently reflect on how it should be positioned, marketed and ultimately generate some revenue so that I can actually afford my own apartment. When I read HN I see this tension. Something comes out and the comments will be. Oh that's cool but fuck you, it's not FOSS but at the same time I see yay, another gadget I will immediately go and buy. You just can't win. I develop on Linux mostly and Windows occasionally, and I've more than paid my dues to the community over the years, but at some point hard decisions have to be made. FOSS is great when you have enough cash stashed to not give a damn or you are just doing it as a hobby. I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun no matter which business model I choose sometimes, and it pains me to have to make a decision, and neither one looks pleasant.
- rvern 10y ago
  Why not just stop playing video games? There's a universal consensus that they're a waste of time anyway, no? I mean this seriously because it is my first thought when someone claims not to be able to switch to GNU/Linux because of games.
  - ferbivore 10y ago
    Why not just stop browsing Hacker News/hanging out with friends/working on side projects/trying to use Linux? There's a universal consensus that it's a waste of time anyway, no? Video games are fun.
virtuallynathan 10y ago
I do this, works great. Get >95% of native perf out of my GTX1070.
- beefsack 10y ago
  You need to run separate GPUs to achieve this though don't you?
  - icecreammatt 10y ago
    You can run your host OS using the integrated graphics and assign the dedicated card to the Windows VM
    - colemickens 10y ago
      I'm having a hard time finding any information about that. Anything you can point me to? Ideally, I'd like to use 2x1080 (sli) with Windows KVM guest and then use the integrated graphics for Linux host.
      - unexistance 10y ago
        google keyword : GPU passthrough https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3lno0t/gpu_passthrough_revisited_an_updated_guide_on_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3lno0t/gpu_pa...
        colemickens 10y ago
        Thanks! I've read up since the last post. Now I'm trying to decide if I can live without SLI.
        icecreammatt 10y ago
        The guide linked above was the same one I used. Honestly it took me quite a while to get it all working. I had to buy a separate soundcard since I wasn't able to get the one on the motherboard to pass through the audio correctly without static noise in it. Once I got the HTC Vive I ended up just going back to a dedicated Windows install and built a separate machine just for Linux stuff. Saved me lots of headache.
Lord_Zane 10y ago
Id love to do this, since I pretty much just need league of legends support. Only problem is, its a vm. How would windows 10 licensing thing work?
- swiley 10y ago
  Windows 10 licencing from dream spark seems to work in qemu-kvm. Idk how normal Windows 10 works with that, I only use it to run the occasional required software for class.
mastax 10y ago
http://vfio.blogspot.com/ http://vfio.blogspot.com/ is another good resource for this. The hardware recommendations will become outdated over time, but otherwise it's great.
chme 10y ago
That is the right way to do this. I would really love if Qubes OS would support that, but it's not quite there yet.

briansteffens 10y ago

Or you could just only play Linux games. I mean sure, you'll eventually get tired of Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of Mordor. But when that happens you can just play Shadow of Mordor.

tormeh 10y ago
Hehe, there's actually a pretty decent amount of games for Linux these days, but if you're an enthusiast then it's not enough.
- briansteffens 10y ago
  Yeah I was exaggerating a bit, I find plenty of games to play. If you're not too picky about which game you play, you can find a lot of good games. It's when all your friends are playing something specific and telling you to play it with them but it's Windows only that you feel the pain and are tempted to reboot into Windows :)
  - herbst 10y ago
    simply dont have a windows to reboot into. problem solved
nyolfen 10y ago
anecdotal, but about 2/3 of the games in my steam library had linux versions available when i switched to desktop linux a couple of years ago. granted, i'm not exactly a aaa title kind of guy
- yohoho22 10y ago
  Looks like they're up around 25% overall, just comparing these two catalog filters that (mostly) exclude DLC: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=win http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998&os=win 2644 games for Linux, and 10750 results for Windows. There's a good deal of high-profile stuff, but Linux support definitely does skew toward the indie side of things.

2bitencryption 10y ago

Just take the Linus Torvalds school of open-source philosophy and don't give a shit whether your software is open source, closed source, free, or $299. Just use good software that makes you happy.

freekh 10y ago

Exactly the same for me! Got bash for Windows up and running with i3 on vcsrt. Ff is running in i3 and it is relatively smooth (I have a beefy specs). Almost all my settings have been ported. However, emacs is struggling because of some weird issue not going fullscreen and there's lots of issues with other execs (GUI in particular) because of dbus (I think)... There's also a super annoying issue with the windows button which I normally use as meta key for i3....

ZoomZoomZoom 10y ago

I suppose by open source you mean free software (because I can't see how you can betray software development methodology by switching OSes). If this is so, than do you understand how silly your alternative sounds? It feels almost like a sarcasm.