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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

by 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.
  - josteink 5y ago
    Ok. And I assume that’ll all work at PCI speeds making it much more performant than using virtio-based forwarding. Sounds neat. Do I need to do anything besides UEFI boot my virt-manager (QEMU) VM to make use of things like this?
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      I generally followed this guide, despite working from another distro: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF The biggest pain every time I've done this is making sure that I can bind the device to the vfio driver.
carlhjerpe 5y ago
I used to use looking glass (still sponsoring the project) but since my hardware is ancient I tried running the windows VM of a DVI to my monitor instead, and it's been so incredibly smooth along with Barrier ever since, with more horsepower I would probably go back to LG because of the convenience of being a regular window I can manage however I want.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  This? https://github.com/debauchee/barrier https://github.com/debauchee/barrier Is the key feature clipboard sharing? Otherwise I don't know why I wouldn't redirect events with zero additional software. As-is, I press both ctrl keys and my keyboard and mouse switch to the virtual machine. The big nuisance is that I need to switch monitor inputs. That appears to be something I can automate, but simply haven't yet.
  - carlhjerpe 5y ago
    Yes that, I don't know how you manage the kb and mouse without it, but I only use it for that.
  - gnif 5y ago
    No, it's not. evdev forces you to have your keyboard/mouse either fully captured or not, which is a pain if you're just working with a productivity suite. With LG's SPICE client input is sent to the VM via the same channel that evdev does, but also gives greater control allowing us to keep the cursor in sync with the local cursor, making the VM feel as if it's just another application on your desktop.

by gnif 5y ago

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.
- josteink 5y ago
  Ok. And I assume that’ll all work at PCI speeds making it much more performant than using virtio-based forwarding. Sounds neat. Do I need to do anything besides UEFI boot my virt-manager (QEMU) VM to make use of things like this?
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    I generally followed this guide, despite working from another distro: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF The biggest pain every time I've done this is making sure that I can bind the device to the vfio driver.

carlhjerpe 5y ago

I used to use looking glass (still sponsoring the project) but since my hardware is ancient I tried running the windows VM of a DVI to my monitor instead, and it's been so incredibly smooth along with Barrier ever since, with more horsepower I would probably go back to LG because of the convenience of being a regular window I can manage however I want.

zbrozek 5y ago
This? https://github.com/debauchee/barrier https://github.com/debauchee/barrier Is the key feature clipboard sharing? Otherwise I don't know why I wouldn't redirect events with zero additional software. As-is, I press both ctrl keys and my keyboard and mouse switch to the virtual machine. The big nuisance is that I need to switch monitor inputs. That appears to be something I can automate, but simply haven't yet.
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  Yes that, I don't know how you manage the kb and mouse without it, but I only use it for that.
- gnif 5y ago
  No, it's not. evdev forces you to have your keyboard/mouse either fully captured or not, which is a pain if you're just working with a productivity suite. With LG's SPICE client input is sent to the VM via the same channel that evdev does, but also gives greater control allowing us to keep the cursor in sync with the local cursor, making the VM feel as if it's just another application on your desktop.