Half of these exist because I was bored once.

The Windows 10 and MacOS ones are GPU passthrough enabled and what I occasionally use if I have to use a Windows or Mac application. Windows 7 is also GPU enabled, but is more a nostalgia thing than anything.

I think my PopOS VM was originally installed for fun, but I used it along with my Arch Linux, Debian 12 and Testing (I run Testing on host, but I wanted a fresh environment and was too lazy to spin up a Docker or chroot), Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora to test various software builds and bugs, as I don’t like touching normal Ubuntu unless I must.

The Windows Server 2022 one is one I recently spun up to mess with Windows Docker Containers (I have to port an app to Windows, and was looking at that for CI). That all become moot when I found out Github’s CI doesn’t support Windows Docker containers despite supporting Windows runners (The organization I’m doing it for uses Github, so I have to use it).

  • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Are you running macOS or Linux as your host? My MacBook is M1 and I found the performance running ARM windows and ARM Fedora via UTM (qemu) to be pretty good.

    • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      On the cheesegrater(2019 MacPro) it’s a little convoluted. During covid times it was my single box lab since it had so much memory (768TB). So I was running nested ESXI hosts and then VMs under that. I also have a M1 MacBook Pro that I had parallels run ARM VMs (mostly MacOS, Windows, and a couple of Debian installs I think).

      I have been looking at VMWare alternatives at work so for the hypervisors I’ve been playing around.

      I do this stuff for a living but I also do it home for fun and profit. Ok not so much profit. Ok no profit but definitely for the fun. And because I love large electric bills.

      • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        That’s a beast of a Mac. Wake on lan is your friend. I have the same problem with my Threadripper. I wrote a script that issues a WOL command to either start/unsuspend my Ubuntu machine so I can turn it off when not in use. It’s probably $70/month difference for me. Most of my virtualization is on Linux but I’ve moved away from VM Ware because QEMU/KVM has worked so well for me. You should check out UTM on the Mac App Store and see if that solves any of your problems.

        ETA: https://mac.getutm.app/

        • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Man this thread has taught me all sorts of things. I will definitely check out UTM. Thanks for that!!