On 03/22/2017 02:15 AM, John Andersen wrote:
I've use VB with Manjaro (archlinux) and haven't had any specific problems with it. I do use Manjaro's packages, but they (Manjaro devs) use it heavily in house and keep their packages right up to date. (Vbox does not release arch packages)
I use it to run a service machine (Windows Server version) in our DMZ box and I've written systemd service scripts to start it at start up time and savestate at shutdown. They work perfectly so far, and the windows server machine is so light weight idling headless in the background that you never notice it is there. You're welcome to that script if you want it.
I use to use Vmware Workstation for this, but they don't support Arch either, so I switched to VirtualBox and have been quite happy with it to date. I still use Vmware for other projects on my Opensuse boxes.
(VirtualBox will run a VMware virtual machine image unchanged, as well as several other virtual machine types).
I'm actually running vbox both on arch, (which I access via rdesktop) and directly on my laptop. You can use the AUR packages: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/virtualbox-bin/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/virtualbox-ext-oracle/ To stay up to the minute with upstream (currently 4.10.4 kernel and 5.1.18 with vbox). A simple tar -xzf and then a makepkg -s and your done. (OK, you do have to update Linux guest with VBoxLinuxAdditions.run, but other than that it is idiot proof) I ran vmware on a SuperMicro server that I would administer via ssh and esxcli system maintenanceMode and vim-cmd, etc..., but the lack of direct hardware access really defeated the purpose of having hot-swappable hardware. The vbox access to guest via rdesktop is great. Similarly, I set a service to launch the guests I want as headless. With both Arch and Win7 guest up, I idle between 3-5% CPU utilization. Rarely go above 8 even when Win7 is banging away with updates or a malware scan. One day I will see how many I can run at once. I've got 32G on that server with 8 cores, and another server with 64G and 16 cores (4 quad core procs). The larger server is just so damn loud with 6 38x80 8,500 rpm fans on it, I basically just use that one to play with -- it would drive me nuts listening to it all the time. The 32G box is silent -- that I can live with. I did have to laugh. I had Leap running the Virtualized Win7 and within the Win7 guest I used Remote Desktop Connect to load the virtualized Archlinux guest. So I had Linux-running-Windows-running-Linux and it worked seamlessly (KDE3->Win7->Fluxbox [which is a damn good little boxtop desktop in its own right]). That brings up another good trick with vbox. The 'seamless' mode where it basically masks your desktop background to allow your host and guest applications to run side-by-side in a full-screen environment. All in all it is been a good revisit of the current vbox setup and config and good comparison with where KVM itself is in comparison. I'll update if I find any other tips worth mentioning. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org