Can anyone give me some clues as to how well openSUSE (virt-manager/KVM/QEMU) supports virtualizing Windows VMs?
I have been trying to do this on CentOS but that lacks many of the facilities I seem to need. It has been suggested that Enterprise SUSE does support some of the things I have been looking for, question is does openSUSE also have the same facilities. For example does openSUSE support Filesystem passthrough?
Thanks,
Nick
How advanced a user are you? Any specific reason for wanting to take the KVM/QEMU route? What is the goal of virtualizing?
Are you sure you wouldn’t be better suited to just running a Windows VM through VirtualBox? This is usually more than adequate for 90% of users.
Well I just thought that KVM/QEMU was the more advanced way of doing virtualization. Also I did try VirtualBox a few months ago but found that it didn’t exactly virtualize Windows perfectly, I encountered various unresolved problems. For example I seem to recall that sound never did work much at all, especially not recording.
I am finding that neither Windows 8 nor Server 2012 can be virtualized by KVM on a CentOS box, wondering if anyone has these working on an openSUSE host.
On 10/29/2012 03:46 PM, Nick C wrote:
> I seem to recall that sound
> never did work much at all, especially not recording.
there are several native Linux recording applications, why would you
want to go to all the trouble of running a VM, and windows?
just so you could run a windows app??
–
dd
Saw your Q, figured it’s something I needed to do myself so just installed Win8 on my QEMU-KVM.
Install went smoothly accepting most defaults except to setup a 12GB disk instead of 30GB.
Clicked through some common apps, IMO performance was OK.
Then installed paravirtualized storage and network drivers per instructions at
openSUSE 12.2: Appendix A. Appendix
Getting the storage driver installed was difficult, seemed Win8 struggled through the first steps finding strange hardware but after finishing all steps there is a <significant> noticeable improvement.
Installing the network driver went quickly and smoothly.
Remaining issues to be resolved is that default sound driver does not work and an unknown PCI device needs to be resolved. But, it might only be a matter of specifying different drivers. Don’t know about mic, yes in the past has been an issue in many virtualizations, don’t know yet if an issue in KVM, too.
Don’t know what “file system pass through” is. You can configure network shares, removable usb storage, readonly storage devices for transferring data.
TSU
Well,
That didn’t take long to fail.
After a couple reboots, the Win8 image no longer can establish a network connection. Other VMs are working fine.
Have tried different virtual network adapters
Since VNC between Host and Guest is working, networking isn’t a complete failure but the Windows Guest refuses to pick up a DHCP address, is configured with an auto-generated address.
This may be a Win8 specific issue instead a more broad issue supporting Windows in general.
TSU
Found reference to “filesystem pass through,” it’s a relatively new feature. Yes, openSUSE supports.
Description and references to implement are here
https://doc.opensuse.org/products/draft/SLES/SLES-kvm_sd_draft/cha.qemu.running.html#kvm.qemu.virtfs
HTH,
TSU
I managed to virtualize a Windows server 2012 on an opensuse 12.2 box on Virt-manager/ KVM (set up through yast2). Everything I have tried in GUI mode works out of the box (the system update is done through the terminal, to be fair, so I didn’t try that). Some modifications may be necessary before install begins for a smooth experience however (set the HDD to use IDE, and redo the graphics to allow remote access) I used the Win 7 preset from the dropboxes, and physical Installation DVD in optical drive.
My Hardware Spec for the opensuse box:
K6-3650 APU
8G RAM
Realtek onboard AC’97
Realtek Gigabit Network x3 (1x onboard, 1xPCIe, 1xPCI)