Thinking of switching to Linux - some questions

Cromulen

New member
I've been using Linux in virtual machines for years, but I need something that VMWare Workstation Pro 14.1.3 does not support which is GPU pass-through. Having said that KVM does support GPU pass-through which is the Linux kernels virtualisation solution.

Would I be able to run a Windows 10 virtual machine to play games in when using KVM? I need to be able to do development work which requires a GPU as well. So I'd probably run two Windows 10 virtual machines and as many Linux virtual machines as I need at that particular time.

So one Windows 10 virtual machine would be used for gaming, and one would be used for programming while using CUDA and doing AI tasks that can be accelerated via a GPU.

I'm just curious if anyone else has my specific requirements?
 

qqdc

Active member
(I know you are asking about KVM, but as you've not got any answers, maybe this will be better than nothing.)

Virtual Box has options to enable 3D acceleration (and 2D video acceleration).
It is marked as experimental, but I've had it on, and it has been fine. However I don't run demanding games.

But I've not tried any of the CUDA stuff from a virtualbox. I imagine it would not be plain sailing (hard enough to get setup normally!) with no benefit. R/Python/Java/C++, and the open source libraries, are always going to run at least as well in Linux than Windows; and even vscode is identical on Linux. GPU drivers are possibly the reverse, i.e. more reliable/quicker on Windows. (I've not tried them on windows; it is just on the rare times Linux crashes, each time I find myself getting suspicious that the GPU driver is to blame.)
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
You might be better off just dual-booting.

Citrix used to do a free bare-metal client hypervisor called XenClient which could do GPU passthrough for one machine at a time. It was frankly an awesome product but alas they discontinued it.

I've had very mixed results trying to use any kind of virtualised passthrough on anything else over the years.
 

mishra

Rising Star
You might be better off just dual-booting.

Best answer!
Basically if you want Linux and games dual-boot is your best options by far. You can try all sort of virtualization options but it will not give anything close to what a native Windows will.
 
Top