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Question for those who have a beefy box as a dev workstation: do you run a hypervisor and try and compartmentalize the way the machine is used, or do you just r

Question for those who have a beefy box as a dev workstation: do you run a hypervisor and try and compartmentalize the way the machine is used, or do you just run/drive a bare OS install? I like that a VM can be started, stopped, moved around, snapshotted, rolled back, etc. Also, anyone daily drive Linux and then have a sidecar/utility VM for windows-related stuff like specific apps or gaming care to comment on that experience?

blep_ 4y ago
I just run bare Linux on mine. Sometimes containers on top of that, but only for specific things, not for general use. I was going to do the Windows VM thing but then the gaming laptop I sold when I did this got returned so I just use that instead.
jasomill 4y ago
I sort of do the opposite; my main Windows dev box is a dual-socket HP Z820 ESXi host with multiple GPUs, a large SAS SSD RAID 10 array, and an additional SSD and pair of large SATA hard drives for ESXi scratch/swap and local backups, respectively. While I don't actually use it for gaming, the main Windows dev VM, with 18 cores, 32GB RAM, a Quadro P1000 (read: underclocked GTX 1050 with a few extra driver features; ideal for my purposes, would use something beefier for a gaming box), and a physical USB 3.0 controller, runs games as well as any similarly-equipped hardware box, with the caveat that, if you play online multiplayer games (I don't), some anti-cheat software apparently detects and refuses to run under virtualization. Alongside this "always-on" main VM, I regularly run multiple Linux (both with and without AMD GPU), Windows, and FreeBSD VMs. This configuration works great for me, but it probably helps that my home office infrastructure includes a vCenter Server and mostly runs on two additional ESXi hosts, and that, on a semi-regular basis, I have applications that require connecting old Fibre Channel and even parallel SCSI hardware, so the workstation's extra PCIe slots and "tool-free" case design come in handy. While I wouldn't buy a Z820 today, I'm in no hurry to replace this one; ideally, I'll swap in a similarly-configured Z8 in 2–3 years.

blep_ 4y ago

I just run bare Linux on mine. Sometimes containers on top of that, but only for specific things, not for general use. I was going to do the Windows VM thing but then the gaming laptop I sold when I did this got returned so I just use that instead.

jasomill 4y ago

I sort of do the opposite; my main Windows dev box is a dual-socket HP Z820 ESXi host with multiple GPUs, a large SAS SSD RAID 10 array, and an additional SSD and pair of large SATA hard drives for ESXi scratch/swap and local backups, respectively. While I don't actually use it for gaming, the main Windows dev VM, with 18 cores, 32GB RAM, a Quadro P1000 (read: underclocked GTX 1050 with a few extra driver features; ideal for my purposes, would use something beefier for a gaming box), and a physical USB 3.0 controller, runs games as well as any similarly-equipped hardware box, with the caveat that, if you play online multiplayer games (I don't), some anti-cheat software apparently detects and refuses to run under virtualization. Alongside this "always-on" main VM, I regularly run multiple Linux (both with and without AMD GPU), Windows, and FreeBSD VMs. This configuration works great for me, but it probably helps that my home office infrastructure includes a vCenter Server and mostly runs on two additional ESXi hosts, and that, on a semi-regular basis, I have applications that require connecting old Fibre Channel and even parallel SCSI hardware, so the workstation's extra PCIe slots and "tool-free" case design come in handy. While I wouldn't buy a Z820 today, I'm in no hurry to replace this one; ideally, I'll swap in a similarly-configured Z8 in 2–3 years.