8 ms·

I thought virt manager was ok but honestly your complaints about it are specific and fair.

eek2121 3y ago
Virtual box has graphical configuration for a ton of different options. It also “just works” in many cases and is relatively easy to use. I am surprised the open source community has not built better gui tools, and no project, closed or open has made configuring pcie passthrough easy. I have always wanted to be able to run Windows in a virtualized session with my GPU for gaming, and use my onboard APU for the Linux host, but the configuration is daunting, and many of the games I play today don’t work on linux thanks to anticheat or DRM.
- photonbeam 3y ago
  I wish there was a port of UTM to linux
  - starkparker 3y ago
    Gnome Boxes is an attempt at a similar interface, but yeah, it's not quite as polished.
    - westurner 3y ago
      virt-manager supports more complex libvirt XML configurations, can also manage VMs created by Gnome Boxes, but doesn't yet have IOMMU/PCIE passthrough with OVMF UEFI device selector and vm configuration gui: https://virt-manager.org/ https://virt-manager.org/
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > I am surprised the open source community has not built better gui tools This is the thing that isn't surprising. In order to make a better GUI tool, you have to understand how the internals work. Then you don't care to use a GUI tool because you know how to use the command line or edit the configuration files. The people who want better GUI tools are the people who don't know how to make them. In order to change this, the people who want GUI tools but don't know how to make them have to provide some incentive (typically money) to the people who know how to make them but don't want them, e.g. via donations or some kind of commercial agreement. And if they stand around and wonder why nobody else has fixed their problem for them instead of doing the thing that causes it to be fixed, an object at rest tends to remain at rest.
- westurner 3y ago
  > no project, closed or open has made configuring pcie passthrough easy "GPU passthrough with libvirt qemu kvm" https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qemu_kvm https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qe... "PCI passthrough via OVMF" https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF : > The Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) is a project to enable UEFI support for virtual machines. Starting with Linux 3.9 and recent versions of QEMU, it is now possible to passthrough a graphics card, offering the virtual machine native graphics performance which is useful for graphic-intensive tasks KVM-GPU-Passthrough: https://github.com/BigAnteater/KVM-GPU-Passthrough https://github.com/BigAnteater/KVM-GPU-Passthrough https://clayfreeman.github.io/gpu-passthrough/ https://clayfreeman.github.io/gpu-passthrough/
  - IntelMiner 3y ago
    I don't think that linking two different Wiki's (for different Linux distros) and two different github posts is "easy" compared to VirtualBox's very "fisher price" Next-Next-Next-Done GUI Not saying I prefer one or the other, but it's worth bearing in mind where "the bar" is
    - westurner 3y ago
      FWICS from scanning those resources, there are a few shell commands to wrap with a config parser and an output parser for a GUI E.g. virt-manager is built with glade XML and Python: virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/createvm.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/createvm.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/cr... virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/gfxdetails.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/gfxdetails.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/gf... virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/hoststorage.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/hoststorage.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/ho... virtManager/createvm.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/createvm.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/device/addstorage.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/device/addstorage.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/device/gfxdetails.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/device/gfxdetails.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/addhardware.py: DeviceController.TYPE_PCI def populate_controller_model_combo(combo, controller_type): https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072b9f857387e8263e9023fa2255abe32/virtManager/addhardware.py#L891 https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072... https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072b9f857387e8263e9023fa2255abe32/virtManager/addhardware.py#L810 https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072...

Virtual box has graphical configuration for a ton of different options. It also “just works” in many cases and is relatively easy to use. I am surprised the open source community has not built better gui tools, and no project, closed or open has made configuring pcie passthrough easy. I have always wanted to be able to run Windows in a virtualized session with my GPU for gaming, and use my onboard APU for the Linux host, but the configuration is daunting, and many of the games I play today don’t work on linux thanks to anticheat or DRM.

photonbeam 3y ago
I wish there was a port of UTM to linux
- starkparker 3y ago
  Gnome Boxes is an attempt at a similar interface, but yeah, it's not quite as polished.
  - westurner 3y ago
    virt-manager supports more complex libvirt XML configurations, can also manage VMs created by Gnome Boxes, but doesn't yet have IOMMU/PCIE passthrough with OVMF UEFI device selector and vm configuration gui: https://virt-manager.org/ https://virt-manager.org/
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> I am surprised the open source community has not built better gui tools This is the thing that isn't surprising. In order to make a better GUI tool, you have to understand how the internals work. Then you don't care to use a GUI tool because you know how to use the command line or edit the configuration files. The people who want better GUI tools are the people who don't know how to make them. In order to change this, the people who want GUI tools but don't know how to make them have to provide some incentive (typically money) to the people who know how to make them but don't want them, e.g. via donations or some kind of commercial agreement. And if they stand around and wonder why nobody else has fixed their problem for them instead of doing the thing that causes it to be fixed, an object at rest tends to remain at rest.
westurner 3y ago
> no project, closed or open has made configuring pcie passthrough easy "GPU passthrough with libvirt qemu kvm" https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qemu_kvm https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qe... "PCI passthrough via OVMF" https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF : > The Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) is a project to enable UEFI support for virtual machines. Starting with Linux 3.9 and recent versions of QEMU, it is now possible to passthrough a graphics card, offering the virtual machine native graphics performance which is useful for graphic-intensive tasks KVM-GPU-Passthrough: https://github.com/BigAnteater/KVM-GPU-Passthrough https://github.com/BigAnteater/KVM-GPU-Passthrough https://clayfreeman.github.io/gpu-passthrough/ https://clayfreeman.github.io/gpu-passthrough/
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  I don't think that linking two different Wiki's (for different Linux distros) and two different github posts is "easy" compared to VirtualBox's very "fisher price" Next-Next-Next-Done GUI Not saying I prefer one or the other, but it's worth bearing in mind where "the bar" is
  - westurner 3y ago
    FWICS from scanning those resources, there are a few shell commands to wrap with a config parser and an output parser for a GUI E.g. virt-manager is built with glade XML and Python: virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/createvm.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/createvm.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/cr... virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/gfxdetails.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/gfxdetails.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/gf... virt-manager/virt-manager//ui/hoststorage.ui: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/hoststorage.ui https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/ui/ho... virtManager/createvm.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/createvm.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/device/addstorage.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/device/addstorage.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/device/gfxdetails.py: https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtManager/device/gfxdetails.py https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/main/virtM... virtManager/addhardware.py: DeviceController.TYPE_PCI def populate_controller_model_combo(combo, controller_type): https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072b9f857387e8263e9023fa2255abe32/virtManager/addhardware.py#L891 https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072... https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072b9f857387e8263e9023fa2255abe32/virtManager/addhardware.py#L810 https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/135cf17072...