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Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

• xiaodai 5y ago
  Reminds me of a Stephen Chow movie where a nutty inventor invented a solar-powered torch that only works if you shine a torch at it.
  • robbedpeter 5y ago
    So a solar flashlight with no batteries?
• thejosh 5y ago
  It performs really well. I love qemu/libvirt - the crazy thing is if you have two disks and use one to boot Windows, you can mount the disk then boot into that when using Linux and have that running off another video card (I have two in my PC, one AMD and and nVidia).
  • vbarrielle 5y ago
    That sounds very interesting. Does that mean I should be able to load a VM containing my windows partition fron linux, even without a dedicated GPU? Do you have a pointer to a tutorial explaining the setup ?
    • josteink 5y ago
      > That sounds very interesting. Does that mean I should be able to load a VM containing my windows partition fron linux, even without a dedicated GPU? That works fine. I do that at work to avoid nuking/tampering with the Windows installation provided to me by IT, while running Linux as my main OS from a second volume.
    • stableviper 5y ago
      Yes, I can confirm that this works. I have one windows installation and can either directly boot windows on the host or start it within Linux with VFIO.
      • TheFreim 5y ago
        Do you know where this is documented? This would be very useful to me.
        • sfink 5y ago
          I wrote a `viewsetup` tool for setting up a /dev/mapper device (and VMDK file pointing to it) that I use for exposing a set of native Windows partitions while masking off the active Linux partitions. It's enough to allow booting Windows natively or in a VirtualBox VM using the same partition. But the steps to create backing files, run dm-setup to create the /dev/mapper device, and create the VMDK are all separate, so you ought to be able to use this with any virtualization tool. I sort of have it documented at https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-tools/blob/master/doc/VirtualAndPhysicalWindows.md https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-tools/blob/master/doc/Vir... though that's really a set of instructions intended for a new PC that a bunch of us at my employer recently received. You just want the `viewsetup` stuff. You probably want to leave off the `--auto` flag, so that it'll prompt you per-partition. The tool goes to some effort to only expose the specific partitions needed. It also makes the virtual disk exactly match the native disk, copying small partitions (and gaps between them) to files and exposing those over loopback interfaces, so that Windows can go crazy and write over everything and it won't break your Linux setup. (The Linux partitions themselves are exposed as loopback devices to empty sparse files of the right size.) Get the single script file at https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-tools/raw/bin/viewsetup?rev=tip https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-tools/raw/bin/viewsetup?rev=ti... or check out the full repo at either https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-tools/ https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-tools/ (mercurial) or https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-tools https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-tools (git). I keep both up to date.
          • TheFreim 5y ago
            Thanks! I will test this out later.
  • qalmakka 5y ago
    It's QEMU and the kernel that do the magic - libvirt is actually kinda annoying and ill suited for these things, you have to edit lots of unnecessary XML just to change launch options for QEMU.
  • b9a2cab5 5y ago
    How is the IO (particularly random IO) performance in Windows? In my experience that's been where VMs still have a long ways to go. Even kvm2 Linux on Linux VMs have severe IO performance deficits compared to native.
• trishume 5y ago
  This is awesome. In theory you could absolutely minimize the latency penalty to just the overhead of the gpu1->memory->gpu2 copy, if the display sync signals from the display the passthrough window was on were passed through to the GPU driver on Windows, and that was combined with fullscreen compositor bypass (available on many Linux WMs) or low-latency compositing (available on sway and now mutter https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/1762 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/1762 on Wayland).
• Mathnerd314 5y ago
  One thing that isn't clear from the website is that it requires two GPUs, one for the host and one for the VM.
  • AlphaSite 5y ago
    Does an iGPU fill the same criteria?
    • LASR 5y ago
      Yes it does. Intel usually is the host adapter.
  • imhoguy 5y ago
    Wouldn't be it possible to let Linux/Xorg give up GPU for a time Windows is used? Which could still let me access it via VNC from Windows. My native platform is Xubuntu on AMD Renoir laptop.
    • genewitch 5y ago
      If this uses vfio then no, the host never sees the GPU, it's blind to it from boot.
      • throwaway2048 5y ago
        Not really a problem, you can unbind the VFIO driver
        • genewitch 5y ago
          > linux /vmlinuz-5.10.27-gentoo root=/dev/nvme0n1p2 ro amd_iommu=on iommu=pt pcie_acs_override=downstream,multifunction pci-stub.ids=10de:1b82,10de:10f0 the host never sees the card.
          • throwaway2048 5y ago
• Mathnerd314 5y ago
  Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907306
• ddalex 5y ago
  The problem is that you have to have a monitor plugged in the windows card otherwise it goes all wonky. At that point you could just use a KVM....
  • eat_veggies 5y ago
    The blurb at the top says "allows the use of a KVM [...] without an attached physical monitor, keyboard or mouse." Is that not correct?
    • ddalex 5y ago
      I mean it behaves like a software KVM, at which point you can use a hardware KVM without the added latency penalty due to memory copy....
      • yc12340 5y ago
        Judging from reviews of hardware keyboard-video-mouse switches, they tend to work MUCH worse than Looking Glass. All modern GPU connectors are digital, so those KVM switches have to include a mini-gpu (usually a costly and buggy one). Also they end up re-implementing a complete HID support, because otherwise switching USB devices between hubs takes forever. In nutshell, KVMs aren't worth their money because they have to re-implementing a lot of hardware already found in your PC.
    • oefrha 5y ago
      The abbreviation KVM can mean two things: Kernel-based Virtual Machine, and keyboard/video/mouse (switch). Gp was talking about the latter.
  • quantum5 5y ago
    You can always use a dummy plug to fool windows into believing there is a monitor attached. Then it's much more convenient than using a KVM switch.
  • Xenograph 5y ago
    KVM switches are often slow and/or buggy and/or expensive. Plus, looking glass is more flexible since you can display both OSs at the same time. As a sibling comment stated, you can get a dummy monitor plug on Amazon for like $5 which fools your GPU into thinking there's a monitor attached.
• wdroz 5y ago
  Can you use this to play netflix at 4k on GNU/Linux?
  • idonotknowwhy 5y ago
    Can rpcs3 do this for you?
    • ac29 5y ago
      The PS3 never supported 4K, so I dont see how its Netflix client would.
      • idonotknowwhy 5y ago
        You're right. Wonder what would happen if you run it and tell rpcs3 to render in 4k
• chayleaf 5y ago
  Guess this is the "Linux Subsystem for Windows" some people have been missing... Too bad it requires 2 GPUs
  • JustStoppinIn89 5y ago
    No, it's nothing like that at all. It's only that if you wear a fedora unironically and have a Slashdot account with a four digit user ID.
    • monocasa 5y ago
      I see the comparison. WSL2 is running a full Linux kernel on top of a hypervisor with an eye towards reducing the overhead of running both kernels (see the recentish discussion on lkml about Microsoft trying to upstream para virtualized directx). When you combine that with the fact that Windows's interface is both more GUI forward and closed to interesting modifications, then the same user model "I want to run both kernels and their user code with as low of overhead as possible in both ux and compute power" this is what you'd come up with for Windows on Linux compared with modern WSL's Linux on Windows.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• mmcgr 5y ago
  Isn't this whole stack very close to being a Windows Subsystem for Linux?
• xaduha 5y ago
  I used it for a bit a while back and would only use it again if I absolutely had to. Cases like that are very limited though, using an external GPU enclosure without a monitor attached to it is one. Being dumb enough to try to use a gimped mining GPU that doesn't have any video outputs is another.
  • Xenograph 5y ago
    I think you forgot to mention why you didn't like it.
    • xaduha 5y ago
      It's too limiting, if you're doing the whole VFIO thing in the first place you don't really want to limit yourself to just Windows in a specific configuration. You want to have an ability to run any OS you can and pass your hardware to it. I wouldn't recommend VFIO just for gaming, there are better options.
      • Xenograph 5y ago
        What exactly is limiting about it? I use it on a daily basis in order to flip between high performance Linux and high performance Windows instantly with the flick of a hotkey. I use it for gaming, software dev, and just in general it's nice to be able to switch OSs for any reason instantly. What better options are there?
        • xaduha 5y ago
          Flipping between OS wasn't how I used VFIO. I had two different OS running on two monitors and both having access to underlying Linux shell. Basically it's not worth setting up VFIO just for gaming, but if you already on top of that mountain, then use whatever. I stopped using VFIO a while back and just bought a laptop that runs Linux without any issues. I don't really have time for games now, but if I wanted to play I would probably wait until next LTSC and install it + latest WSL on my PC. Or would buy a console, maybe that Steam Deck.
• COGlory 5y ago
  If anyone is interested, the main developer, who goes by 'gnif' spends a decent amount of time on the dedicated Looking Glass sub-forum on the Level1Techs forum, here: https://forum.level1techs.com/c/software/lookingglass/142 https://forum.level1techs.com/c/software/lookingglass/142 Level1Techs also has a ton of information and help both on the forum, and their YouTube channel, about setting up Looking Glass and VFIO. The main host of the YouTube channel, Wendell, has forgotten more about nitty-gritty system administration than I will likely ever know in my lifetime. He also just seems like a genuinely good human being.
  • Xenograph 5y ago
    Just want to say that gnif is amazing. He is always happy to help out people on the looking glass support discord. Plus he's absolutely dedicated to continuing to improve the software he writes and the ecosystem around it. Top notch guy.
    • gnif 5y ago
      Thanks mate, your support is appreciated.
  • glglwty 5y ago
    I looked into this project (and related GPU pass through projects) a few years ago. Putting the discussion and even some issue tracking into a "support thread" in this forum makes getting information really difficult. It's the same experience when you want to install LinageOS and realize you have to go through a long thread on XDA and sometimes reddit to solve any issue you may have.
    • gnif 5y ago
      We have tried very hard to rectify this with the B4 release by adding a documentation project to the repository, which is available in HTML form here: https://looking-glass.io/docs/stable/ https://looking-glass.io/docs/stable/
      • 5y ago
• mongol 5y ago
  What does this do that regular KVM + Qemu does not?
  • JustStoppinIn89 5y ago
    It provides bare metal access to the entire hardware stack. So for instance you could run Linux via your integrated GPU (the one on many consumer CPUs) while passing through your dedicated GPU to the Windows VM. This is how I "gamed on Linux" from 2018~2020 when I ran Ubuntu as my primary OS. It's incredibly finicky to set up (shocker, I know!) but if you're able to get it working it's truly amazing. Talking like 1% performance loss in AAA games in that virtual machine on the GPU. As for me, I abandoned Ubuntu (and Linux, I did try other distros!) in early 2020. I was tired of juggling my home setup just to relax. In a move unpopular with the Slashdot crowd from 1996, I went back to Windows as my host OS.
    • 29athrowaway 5y ago
      Just use Proton. Install games from Steam directly.
      • Anunayj 5y ago
        Atleast right now, most anticheat software aren't available for Linux, You need a Windows kernel for them to run. This can however change as Steam plans to use SteamOS (based on Arch) as their primary OS on the SteamDeck.
        • 29athrowaway 5y ago
          And only a minority of games do require anticheat.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
        • Rd6n6 5y ago
• Rd6n6 5y ago
  The question everyone is wondering: is this ready for serious use for gaming and productivity (Eg, photoshop or game development)? Or is it very hard to get a smooth workflow going? If the workflow is not great, is there a clear path to solving that?
  • tbr1 5y ago
    It's quite easy to get it set up once you have a VM with GPU passthrough running (for which there are plenty of guides available online) -- just a double-click installation of a service on the Windows side, compiling a cmake project on the Linux side, and (optionally, for some extra performance) compiling a Linux kernel module. After that it kind of just works, and continues working. I use it to play games and run Office apps, and have not had it break on me in a ~year of use. (Disclaimer: I occasionally contribute to the project now, but remember being impressed at how easy it was to get going when I first tried it out. Getting the VM working at all was the hardest part of the endeavor, but only took a few hours.)
    • AYoung010 5y ago
      Just to tack on, I set up windows with GPU pass-through and looking glass on my new laptop over the course of about 3 hours of on-and-off work using the excellent guide over at https://asus-linux.org/wiki/vfio-guide/ https://asus-linux.org/wiki/vfio-guide/
  • Nullabillity 5y ago
    You don't need this for general productivity software, only stuff where QEMU's emulated GPU is too slow or otherwise insufficient (so games, video editing, etc). The caveats are basically: 1. Setup is a bit annoying LG can feed input into any VM but requires guest support for capture, so you need to do the setup with a direct monitor. 2. The passed-through card must have a monitor connected. IIRC, this is an API issue since it just captures what would go to that monitor. 3. Some things are only visible on the real monitor. They need different capture strategies for the regular desktop, system desktops (such as lock screens), and secure desktops (UAC prompts). Sometimes the transition fails, sometimes there is no strategy implemented for what you're trying to show. 4. Your CPU and motherboard must support IOMMU passthrough. For Intel this means using Skylake+ and ensuring that it supports VT-d. For AMD this means using Ryzen with an X-series motherboard. 5. You need separate GPUs for the host and guest. Blame GPU vendors for making VT-g an enterprise-only feature.
• Kiboneu 5y ago
  Reminds me of the time I'd use a patched ACPI table on my gaming VM to mock a battery for the NVIDIA driver (similar to [0]). The drivers checked and deliberately failed when a battery wasn't present in conjunction with a mobile GPU. Setting up looking glass itself wasn't much of a problem though. I got some AAA games cutting on my gentoo laptop like butter, though the mouse movement was more jelly unless I VFIOd my mouse/kb as well. Sound went through Scream over a socket. Nowadays I play on my Xbox. I ditched gentoo. I've gotten old. Do you, reader, assume that I've also checked out and gone full windows? If you do, then guess again. I'm about to port my whole gentoo gaming setup to NixOS and it will probably take me about 15 minutes, and ~ 5 - 10 minutes a year just to maintain. How much time do you spend fiddling with your windows and driver updates? Oh, wait... 0: https://old.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/ebo2uk/nvidia_geforce_rtx_2060_mobile_success_qemu_ovmf/ https://old.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/ebo2uk/nvidia_geforce...
  • Jach 5y ago
    These days many AAA games work well in Gentoo thanks to Proton, though I still dual boot (to Windows 7...) for a lot of games. Looking Glass is pretty cool, though perhaps it's a bit too late. My next Windows on a new computer will be either 10 Enterprise LTSC or 11 if 11 doesn't suck, but I still plan to run Gentoo as my primary. If your NixOS experience matches your expectations over the next year, it'd be neat to hear about it later -- I looked at Nix a long time ago but I've been a happy Gentoo user since 2007 and I still see no reason to move. I've gotten a bit old, but the maintenance is low, every time I use another distro it inevitably annoys me for not being like Gentoo, and anyway the upkeep sort of feels like gardening, not like a pain in the butt.
    • gnif 5y ago
      Just FYI, Looking Glass has been in development for over three years now, so it's not actually as late as you think :). Also proton doesn't address the myriad of productivity applications that people still need windows for, such as Adobe products, or Autocad, etc.
  • dmos62 5y ago
    My windows boot is generally low maintenance, but a Windows update did introduce a stutter in all games once, so had to do a clean install (no restore point). Was annoying to troubleshoot. Windows is a mess. If only anti cheats worked on Linux.
• villgax 5y ago
  What's with the name being the same as the holo display maker?
  • gnif 5y ago
    You mean what's with the Holo display maker having the same name as us? We were using and had the name before they announced their product. If you want to get really finicky, you can ask why we are using the same name as Sun's Looking Glass desktop environment.
• zaptheimpaler 5y ago
  I run a VFIO setup with a single GPU - the linux host is headless, and Windows runs on top with the GPU. Its pretty awesome. Windows runs at native performance - no problem gaming or running other heavy workloads. The linux host acts as a devbox and runs a few other homeserver style services. It's difficult to set up right but it taught me a lot about VMs and hardware. Once you get it setup well enough, its relatively painless. Like I haven't messed with my VM settings in over a year, everything just continues to work smoothly. Including windows updates, driver upgrades, most online games with anti-cheat etc. If i upgrade my hardware, it might take a day or two of tinkering to get it back up. Based on my benchmarking it runs within ~5% of native perf. This is still the best guide IMO if you want to set it up - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF. Single GPU is basically the same as dual GPU, except you have to ensure the linux host does not take over the GPU or load any drivers for it during boot.
  • cdata 5y ago
    Which games do you play that require anti-cheat schemes? The last time I checked, many such games explicitly do not support running in VMs and you risk being banned by obfuscating that you are running the game in a guest OS.
    • Google234 5y ago
      For EAC, they require a variety of signals to ban someone (unless it’s a obvious thing like detecting a known cheat.) An honest VM setup that doesn’t obfuscate probably counts as one potential signal that you are cheating, an obfuscated one that they are able detect might be a stronger signal.
    • gnif 5y ago
      Most games work just fine, just a few odd ones that decided to block VMs don't such as Tarkov. Known to work without issue are titles such as * PUBG * Battlefield 1/3/4/5 * Titanfall 1&2 * Arma 3 * 7 Days to Die * Ark * Fortnite * Apex * Halo: The Master Chief Collection * Star Wars Squadrons And many many more.
• ksec 5y ago
  I thought it was Project Looking Glass [1] from Java era. It was really cool back then. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass
  • pantulis 5y ago
    There is also the Looking Glass server software that ISPs provide to debug routing issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Glass_server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Glass_server
  • sgt 5y ago
    Ah yes, I still remember little Jonathan Schwartz presenting project Looking Glass! Those felt like good days, even though it was clearly the end of Sun Microsystems.
• Royi 5y ago
  What would be the best solution (Performance wise) if one is only after running Photoshop + Office? Looking for a solution which is easy to install and configure.
  • gnif 5y ago
    If you want easy, this is not for you. Setting up LG first requires setting up a VFIO Virtual Machine. As for how viable it is, very... we have many members in our community that are using LG for productivity applications. For performance, very close to bare metal. In applications like Photoshop and Office you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
    • josteink 5y ago
      > If you want easy, this is not for you. Setting up LG first requires setting up a VFIO Virtual Machine. Any quick links to how that differs from a regular QEMU/KVM setup?
      • gnif 5y ago
        https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF
        • josteink 5y ago
          Thanks. So if I’m already UEFI booting my VMs with dedicated volumes, the key difference is how GPU pass-through is done?
          • gnif 5y ago
            Pretty much, lots of factors that are hardware dependent, such as how your motherboard assigns IOMMU groups come into play.
      • zbrozek 5y ago
        You can also pass through more than just a GPU. I pass through an NVMe disk and a USB controller, effectively giving me a full second computer within my workstation. It's honestly fantastic.
• schmorptron 5y ago
  Malwarebytes blocks this domain as a trojan, that's a false positive though, isn't it?
  • gnif 5y ago
    Indeed, AV vendors flag LG because the windows executable we host: 1) It's not a signed executable (FOSS project, signing is a PITA without corporate sponsorship) 2) Microsoft Defender flagged the exe for wanting admin privs 3) Google were dumb and flagged us because MS did 4) All other AV vendors flagged us because google flagged our website. We had to put the exe into a password protected zip to stop Google flagging us as we couldn't convince the idiots (robots) there that it was a FOSS project with all sources available for review. Feel free to help us out and report the false positive to your AV vendors! :)
    • schmorptron 5y ago
      Alright, good to know! Will send a report :)
• c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  I have a lot of respect for the VFIO crowd but speaking as an administrator of Linux systems myself, I didn't ever find the effort or pain worth it. I run a native Windows 10 system for games because the last thing I want after a workday of fixing corporate systems is having to fix my own system just so I can chill out and play a game.
• protoman3000 5y ago
  Does anybody here have a tip how I can run virtualized OSX like this using the internal GPU of a notebook?
  • luzeal 5y ago
    It depends on your internal GPU. If it's an Intel GPU, you could use vfio-mdev, which allows you to split your physical GPU into smaller counterparts. It will only work with the macOS version that are compatible with Intel GPUs (probably most of them). Have a look here for a guide on Archlinux : https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_GVT-g https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_GVT-g. And here for a script to deploy macOS on KVM : https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM. Side-note : vfio-mdev can now be unlocked on consumer-grades Nvidia cards too : https://github.com/DualCoder/vgpu_unlock https://github.com/DualCoder/vgpu_unlock. Sadly, it is not possible for AMD-cards. By the way, I am working on Phyllome OS (https://phyllo.me/ https://phyllo.me/), which is an attempt to make it easier to do such things. But please don't tell anyone :)
• bennyp101 5y ago
  So, I don't think I'm understanding this correctly, does it have to be a separate machine? Seems to mention VM and VNC so I'm not entirely sure what it is! Like, currently I dual boot into Windows for games, but I can also get into it from Virtualbox if I need to quickly use something on there. Would I be able to use this with that? So I can use the internal GPU for my local Linux install, and then use the nvidia for the windows?
  • shock 5y ago
    Yes, it would work for your setup perfectly. Linux on the iGPU and windows on the nvidia.
    • bennyp101 5y ago
      Oh ok awesome! Looks like I need to do some proper research on this then - can it really be, the best of both worlds?!
      • shock 5y ago
        I certainly think so.
• beermonster 5y ago
  I used to run a Windows Server 2016 box on KVM and used all the virt-io drivers from RedHat(?) to have paravirtualisation for better performance. Ran fine. Bet it wouldn’t have been so great for, say, Windows 10 on a desktop and for anything GPU intensive. So my Q is, is this GPU pass-through and is it novel/new ? Trying to see how it’s different to what I was running 5 years ago.
• aetherspawn 5y ago
  I'm an engineering software contractor and every client has a whole bucket load of outdated IDEs and random USB interface drivers they want me to install on my machine. Often this stuff has weird specific version dependencies, kernel level drivers that cause weird things to happen (like the computer to BSOD if you boot it up with other USB devices attached), random system level crashes, and when you go to the driver download page there are always an unsettling list of simple security vulns noted. The #1 thing that I've ever wanted is a Linux that lives between the bootloader and Windows that lets me achieve native performance on the Windows VM, but gives me an environment where I can easily do all the things that you can usually do in HyperV like create snapshots, clone installs, share Sharepoint drives between images, etc. But I do need something that is perfectly stable and just works. This is the right technology (thank you so much for working on it), but just not yet at a maturity that makes me feel comfortable about putting livelihood on the line. Edit: actually, please, if anyone knows something that suits this use-case, even if it costs decent money, please leave a comment.
  • carlhjerpe 5y ago
    I would probably run proxmox if I was you and kit your device with extra peripheral cards that you pass through to the VM, with ZFS you can snapshot your vm volumes and proxmox has builtin support to do full backups and either store on your local machine or ship them off to a remote location. If you pass the GPU through to Windows you're going to be essentially native speed along with great security and flexibility. If you want to have multiple windows machines you could just rdp them unless you need GPU acceleration in them too. If you're working on a laptop I would not recommend ZFS, ZOL doesn't implement freeze and thaw.
    • aetherspawn 5y ago
      Would you still recommend this if it was a mobile workstation [1], doing a mix of at-desk work and mobile work, utilizing peripherals like docking stations, and I was running nearly constant compute intensive workloads (Matlab)? 1: https://www.dell.com/en-au/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified/new-precision-7560-mobile-workstation/spd/precision-15-7560-laptop/on7560wm02au_vp https://www.dell.com/en-au/work/shop/workstations-isv-certif...
• rhdxmr 5y ago
  Amazing. Without dual boot, windows in VM can run at almost native performance? wow. I used LILO or GRUB to make my PC dual boot many years ago. But now I think I am not gonna need dual boot any more.
• afranchuk 5y ago
  FWIW, I got native windows performance on a Linux host just using virtualbox and (the key part) a virtual disk file that I manually edited to point directly to a windows partition on disk. This made it obvious that file IO was the bottleneck...
  • TheFreim 5y ago
    Is it really native performance? I find it hard to believe but now I'm curious and will have to try this out...
    • sfink 5y ago
      Close to native disk performance, but graphics performance (and capability/compatibility) are not at all native.
    • afranchuk 5y ago
      Yeah as sfink said (and I should have clarified and used different vocabulary), this was "native" performance for most typical tasks like programming, it wasn't a gaming setup. Though there was still hardware accelerated graphics through VirtualBox.
• carlsborg 5y ago
  Had anyone tried this with ReactOS?
• fsflover 5y ago
  One can also have a similar setup on Qubes OS.
• therealmarv 5y ago
  Does anyone know if you can do color accurate work with this setup (non HDR) ? To go into detail: are monitor color calibration from Linux (is that even existing) and Windows conflicting here?
  • gnif 5y ago
    Looking Glass is lossless, so provided you can do your color calibration under Linux then it would work fine.
• marwis 5y ago
  Does it work with desktops with two PCIe GPUs or is it only for laptops? Do I need HDMI dummy plug in "Windows" card?
  • quantum5 5y ago
    Yes, desktops with two PCIe GPUs is actually the more common use case. As for dummy plug, it's most likely need to convince windows to turn on the GPU when you are not plugging a monitor.
• jokoon 5y ago
  Sorry to ask, but I'm still using win10 as I could switch to linux if I wanted. Except gaming I personally don't see what prevents me from being "linux first". I'm just using windows 10 by habit and laziness. What is your experience? What makes you still need windows? It's weird because there are so many software alternatives that run on linux and also many initiatives that allow one to be run on linux via emulators and whatnots.
  • veilrap 5y ago
    I use Windows as my prior OS for work, even though much of work ends up happening through a Linux command line (WSL/ssh) For both work and casual use, there's a lot of small things that add up to it being very productive, and despite regularly giving the linux desktop a chance, I always gravitate back to Windows (and recently MacOS as well). I feel like most of the QoL features I enjoy are mostly invisible so its hard to remember them unless I'm actually experimenting with the Linux desktop. Here's some that do come to mind though. - Windows supports right-click and drag with context menus. For multi directory file manipulation, this shortcut is shockingly useful. While much file manipulation can be faster on the CLI, certain operations like this are incredibly efficient. - Binary blobs are really convenient compared to package managers/source building for my daily driver stuff. I have decade old games that just work, and I've never had to deal with version incompatibilities for my tooling, unlike in my Linux environments. - Common actions like sleep/wake just seem to work better. - Microsoft Office is really nice.
• SubiculumCode 5y ago
  I feel very behind the times. I've only used virtualbox for VMs and performance and capability wise, I don't think you could reasonably expect to play a game requiring 3d graphics in it.
• gspr 5y ago
  Very very impressive! Is there anything similar in the works for a Linux-on-Linux scenario? My usecase is gaming without the host needing the proprietary nvidia crap (pass-through of the nvidia card for doing CUDA stuff in the guest already works great, but that doesn't help for e.g. Steam games).
• Naracion 5y ago
  I was confused for quite some time--I thought this was the same company that creates the holographic display, and this software is used to display content on the device. Which didn't make sense to me since it simply acts as an external monitor. The more I read, the more I got confused. Just a warning to readers that it's not the same company :) https://lookingglassfactory.com/ https://lookingglassfactory.com/
• tmzt 5y ago
  I've wanted to build this forever on top of coreboot. A kvm host (like firecracker), VFIO, and keyboard shortcut to send commands to the VM instead of underlying system. This would include snapshot, switch systems, and something like snapshot and fork the running system.
• intack-choi 5y ago
  Is it basically the same way how android emulator (avds) render hardware accelerated graphics?
• moss2 5y ago
  Omfg I think I just wet my pants a little