Ubuntu + Win10 VM

M

mufcfan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
266
Hi and thanks for checking this thread!

The objective I've set for myself is to try and change over completely to Ubuntu. I have several reasons, but they do not add up to this being a must. I will see if I want to continue down this path or not.
I have a desktop with an i5-7600K with 16GB DDR4 and a 1070 card, which I mainly use for gaming and video editing.

Since I'm too lazy to dual-boot and I will have a Win10 virtual machine anyway, I would be most comfortable with converting my current OS to be able to play games there as a second-last resort.
I read many pages on how to do this, but the information seemed outdated, so I need advice from someone who does/tried this nowadays.

Which software should I use to run the P2V image of my current Win10 installation with the least performance hit? If I read things correctly, ESXi sounds good, but it is expensive too.
What software will get me an image compatible with that? Both Disk2VHD and StarWind V2V seem as good options generally.

If I could do this, then I could use Ubuntu daily and easily keep on moving my stuff over to the land of the penguin. Maybe even get others with Win7 laptops to follow.

Thanks for your help in advance!

PS.: I chose Ubuntu because it seems to be generally better supported. Based on what I read, it offers the best chance for something to work out-of-the-box.
 
Ubuntu or Pop_OS! (Pop_OS! gaming support is top notch and is based on Ubuntu) will be your best bet for the foray into the wonderful land of Linux.

As for the P2V image you can use qemu or libvrt to run it. I've never done it myself so I'm no help there but there's plenty of documentation and videos about how to do it and I'm sure someone else here has done it.
 
mufcfan said:
gaming and video editing.
Click to expand...

If you're serious about either of these, you'll figure out how to dual-boot (which isn't hard). You can start up Linux first and attempt your normal tasks, and switch back where you fall short of Linux. You can also experiment with setting up a Windows 10 VM to perform those tasks, however, it's highly recommended to keep an install 'on metal' until you're comfortable with the experience you're getting on Linux.
 
Eh. I think a Windows 10 vm is fine. That’s what I run since dual booting has its own set of headaches. As for the distrio, I highly suggest Pop OS if you want to game. You can game on Ubuntu but Pop OS makes it a lot easier. Generally it’s ready to go out of the box where you still have to put in some terminal work to pull libraries and other bits on Ubuntu before it’s game ready.
 
Thanks for the replies, very useful!
I will stick with Ubuntu for now and, if I can't bend it to my will, then I can always try Pop OS.
Dual-booting did get set up, so I have the option. Hopefully, I will not have to use it too often.

I did get the login loop problem before I could log in. I managed to fix it, although I'm not sure which step fixed it exactly as the last step was rebooting. (Installed recommended nVidia driver and set ownership of .ICEauthority)

On the VM topic: I read that it is best with two GPUs as the one for the VM will get isolated. I have a GTX460 lying around, so I could use that for the host and the 1070 for the guest.
The problem that comes to mind is that in Windows, I can't have two nVidia drivers installed at once, but the GTX460 hasn't been supported since v390 of the drivers.
The fact that I can select which driver to use with my 1070 makes me hopeful that, if I install my GTX460, will be able to select a different driver for that card.
Screenshot from 2020-02-16 20-56-02.png

Could someone please confirm that this can be in fact done, before I install the card?

Thanks again for all the help and advice!
 
Just don't install the drivers for the GTX460 in Windows?

Or, use the GPU on your 7600K instead. Those work marvelously well for everything except AAA gaming.
 
If you are passing through the GTX 1070 via IOMMU, then the GTX1070 shouldn't even show up on your Linux host (afaik, I haven't actually done this myself, though I am planning to and still gathering data).

The only real downside is the GTX 1070 that is passed to the Windows VM will need its own display (or if your monitor has two inputs, you'll have to switch inputs).
 
Considering the issues surrounding GPU pass through, it's easier to dual boot.

VM's are great for testing, but they're not really designed for gaming, where they can be configured for gaming complexity is high and likely to put you off running Linux altogether for all the wrong reasons. If you don't want to dual boot find a cheap spare machine and install bare metal.
 
Well, I might be going about this the wrong way, but I would need some accomplishments to make me actually change to Linux. I find that solving a difficult task can give me comfort.
Setting up the VM successfully might give me that.

In the three hours since installation finished, I had trouble logging in, taking a screenshot, getting output from the rear jacks of my soundcard (must unplug headphones) and mounting my fifth NTFS hard drive.
I could find a solution to each of these, but I'm not exactly having fun yet. I have a hard time giving up on IT stuff though. ;)

Steam works and I could play a round in CS:GO. It loads very slow and stutters a bit too, but lets chalk it up to the NTFS partition for now.
All that has to be enough for today.
 
Also, consider installing Proton for gaming under Linux.

Gaming under a Windows VM is probably going to be sub-optimal, even if you get GPU pass-though working properly.
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
Also, consider installing Proton for gaming under Linux.

Gaming under a Windows VM is probably going to be sub-optimal, even if you get GPU pass-though working properly.
Click to expand...

I honesetly don't believe there's much point if you're running a VM, especially if you're not running pass through. I stand by the claim that you'd be better off bunging another HDD in there for Linux, even if you don't use GRUB and select your OS via the UEFI boot menu - Then if you don't like Linux you just remove that drive and you're back to normal.
 
Thanks for all the posts!

My long-term goal is not to use the VM, well, only if something Windows-specific comes up. But with Origin in the picture, it might be necessary to do so, in order to avoid rebooting and switching constantly and to get rid of the installation on the physical drive.

I took a step in the right direction as I installed my GTX460, connected the display to it, and could install driver v390 for it. It required the replacing of an xserver package with a corresponding version.
However, after reboot, I could get the 1070 back to v435.



Although, I see now that jeremyshaw confirmed my original thinking that since the 1070 will be isolated for the VM, it should not even be in the picture or get a driver.
No worries, this is still a very nice option to configure two different cards. I will get on with configuring the virtual machine and everything will be fine... as I imagine :)

EDIT: Spoke too soon. One driver for all here as well. Not a problem, it seemed too good to be true anyway.
 
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mufcfan said:
Thanks for all the posts!

My long-term goal is not to use the VM, well, only if something Windows-specific comes up. But with Origin in the picture, it might be necessary to do so, in order to avoid rebooting and switching constantly and to get rid of the installation on the physical drive.

I took a step in the right direction as I installed my GTX460, connected the display to it, and could install driver v390 for it. It required the replacing of an xserver package with a corresponding version.
However, after reboot, I could get the 1070 back to v435.



Although, I see now that jeremyshaw confirmed my original thinking that since the 1070 will be isolated for the VM, it should not even be in the picture or get a driver.
No worries, this is still a very nice option to configure two different cards. I will get on with configuring the virtual machine and everything will be fine... as I imagine :)

EDIT: Spoke too soon. One driver for all here as well. Not a problem, it seemed too good to be true anyway.
Click to expand...

I run Origin under Lutris. It runs fine.

I used to be able to run BF4 until Punk Buster took a dump, can't be bothered figuring it out. I mostly use it to play all my Westwood Studio's Tiberian Sun/C&C titles, awesome games right there! They run so fast I've got to crank the speed right down.
 
Mazzspeed said:
I run Origin under Lutris. It runs fine.

I used to be able to run BF4 until Punk Buster took a dump, can't be bothered figuring it out. I mostly use it to play all my Westwood Studio's Tiberian Sun/C&C titles, awesome games right there! They run so fast I've got to crank the speed right down.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I read that it generally works with Lutris, but I also read that multiplayer usually doesn't work. I have a pretty good collection in FIFA 20 FUT, which I don't want to give up on.

I have set up IOMMU and isolation of the 1070. Messed it up at first, but corrected it using the recovery shell. The game was getting started and so the TV kept stealing my focus. :)
Also created the virtual machine, several actually, but could not get it to boot. That's where I ended up with for now:

Screenshot from 2020-02-17 23-12-31.png


I might get a Win10 image to run bcdboot and... fix up booting. I have a relatively new image from a different language... it might work for bcdboot, I guess.
 
mufcfan said:
Yeah, I read that it generally works with Lutris, but I also read that multiplayer usually doesn't work. I have a pretty good collection in FIFA 20 FUT, which I don't want to give up on.

I have set up IOMMU and isolation of the 1070. Messed it up at first, but corrected it using the recovery shell. The game was getting started and so the TV kept stealing my focus. :)
Also created the virtual machine, several actually, but could not get it to boot. That's where I ended up with for now:

View attachment 224073

I might get a Win10 image to run bcdboot and... fix up booting. I have a relatively new image from a different language... it might work for bcdboot, I guess.
Click to expand...

I play a number of MP titles just fine. As stated, BF4 did work, then there was a PB update and now I can join a server just fine but get dumped not long after joining. I tried updating PB and that's as far as I got, after that my attention span wondered.
 
I have tried Lutris today and it really is promising. I could get OOTP 20 working without any hassle.
However, FIFA 20 doesn't work at all. I saw an error in the log regarding FIFASetup, so I set it to skip the launcher. Now, there is no error, it just seems to terminate instantly.
I have also tried NFS Heat and it runs, but keeps minimizing every time I activate its window.

The weird thing is that I can find reddit conversations and youtube videos about how well these titles run for people, but not one of them cared to share how they do it. As it sure as hell did not work right away.

I keep getting crash reports for Lutris. Even though, it, or Origin, never actually closes.
I followed the instructions for installing Lutris, Vulkan and Wine, but I must have missed something.
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
Also, consider installing Proton for gaming under Linux.

Gaming under a Windows VM is probably going to be sub-optimal, even if you get GPU pass-though working properly.
Click to expand...
If setup properly, you can get around 95% of bare metal performance in my experience.

I’ve used GPU passthrough with my 1950X system for over a year now, not a single issue.

It’s not for everyone though. You can run into some annoying IOMMU limitations depending on the board you have. Thankfully, the Zenith Extreme has really good IOMMU isolation. I found myself having to tweak things more with using Proton while getting my passthrough VM setup took a lot of work with the initial configuration - but once done it was basically set it and forget, have had 0 compatibility issues.
 
x3sphere said:
If setup properly, you can get around 95% of bare metal performance in my experience.

I’ve used GPU passthrough with my 1950X system for over a year now, not a single issue.

It’s not for everyone though. You can run into some annoying IOMMU limitations depending on the board you have. Thankfully, the Zenith Extreme has really good IOMMU isolation. I found myself having to tweak things more with using Proton while getting my passthrough VM setup took a lot of work with the initial configuration - but once done it was basically set it and forget, have had 0 compatibility issues.
Click to expand...

The problem is, when you have a problem and you're trying to evaluate whether the guest operating system is for you or not, what do you blame? The guest OS, the host OS or the UEFI implementation? It opens up a can of worms when it's actually easier just to bung another HDD into the system and select it using your UEFI boot manager - Especially when using technologies such as Wine/Proton/DXVK/DX9VK.
 
mufcfan said:
I have tried Lutris today and it really is promising. I could get OOTP 20 working without any hassle.
However, FIFA 20 doesn't work at all. I saw an error in the log regarding FIFASetup, so I set it to skip the launcher. Now, there is no error, it just seems to terminate instantly.
I have also tried NFS Heat and it runs, but keeps minimizing every time I activate its window.

The weird thing is that I can find reddit conversations and youtube videos about how well these titles run for people, but not one of them cared to share how they do it. As it sure as hell did not work right away.

I keep getting crash reports for Lutris. Even though, it, or Origin, never actually closes.
I followed the instructions for installing Lutris, Vulkan and Wine, but I must have missed something.
Click to expand...

This is the reason why I suggested Pop OS. Generally you will need to install a bunch of extra libraries, fonts, packages, and features to get things to work. I always had issues with getting games that everyone else was able to get working running on my computer. Pop OS changed everything for me. Everything just worked. Blizzard Launcher, Origin, Steamplay just worked, Vulkan out of the box, DXVK out of the box, it was all there.
 
AltTabbins said:
This is the reason why I suggested Pop OS. Generally you will need to install a bunch of extra libraries, fonts, packages, and features to get things to work. I always had issues with getting games that everyone else was able to get working running on my computer. Pop OS changed everything for me. Everything just worked. Blizzard Launcher, Origin, Steamplay just worked, Vulkan out of the box, DXVK out of the box, it was all there.
Click to expand...
Actually, it was my fault that FIFA did not work. I did not understand that even though I got Origin installed, FIFA will not work in that environment.
It works now, because I used the install script which installed some dependencies. The .NET 4.7.2 installer took ages, but it did the trick.
The game runs well, but there is some over-saturation with the colors (I think this is true in general) and fast movements up close look... hard to describe, but choppy or sluggish maybe. No v-sync issues even then, so I don't think that it is a performance issue.

I'd say I don't need the Origin installation, because that is almost the only thing it can do: run Origin, and not much more.

With this out of the way, I'm much more comfortable. I might even give up my Win10 installation and install a VM from scratch. I will still need it just in case and to be able to help others if they need support.

The only griefs I have are with Gnome. I think it manages focus badly in some cases and customization options seem scarce.
However, replacing it seems too risky with so many things depending on it. Not to mention that it would be much harder to follow instructions helping with Ubuntu.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the help, much appreciated! (y)
 
mufcfan said:
I'd say I don't need the Origin installation, because that is almost the only thing it can do: run Origin, and not much more.
Click to expand...

How do you install an EA title without Origin? I install titles with Origin all the time under Lutris.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Is that under Lutris?
Click to expand...
Yep

But I discovered that OOTP 20 won't run with the FIFA instance of Origin, so I have to keep both. They take up about 10GB without the games themselves.
I should get rid of some games I have not even played in years.
 
mufcfan said:
Yep

But I discovered that OOTP 20 won't run with the FIFA instance of Origin, so I have to keep both. They take up about 10GB without the games themselves.
I should get rid of some games I have not even played in years.
Click to expand...

I was going to say, you need both as the runner will have customized settings/dependacies that the specific title needs in order to run..
 
I forgot to mention that I used this guide when trying to get my VM to work: https://mathiashueber.com/windows-virtual-machine-gpu-passthrough-ubuntu/.
The fact that I couldn't get my P2V Win10 to boot doesn't mean anything. I found it informative, easy to understand and to be more up to date than anything else I could find.
I would only suggest a change to the way the PCI IDs are looked up. There's no need for a script or anything close to that. lspci -nn (or -nnv as proposed later) should give ample information to get the sought after PCI IDs, as it can be seen later on. But I guess I have the advantage there as my previous position at work required the hunting of PCI information for all kinds of hardware.

For the IOMMU information, the script is useful, but that information is not used later on in the guide, so it seems like overkill.
 
mufcfan said:
Hi and thanks for checking this thread!

The objective I've set for myself is to try and change over completely to Ubuntu. I have several reasons, but they do not add up to this being a must. I will see if I want to continue down this path or not.
I have a desktop with an i5-7600K with 16GB DDR4 and a 1070 card, which I mainly use for gaming and video editing.

Since I'm too lazy to dual-boot and I will have a Win10 virtual machine anyway, I would be most comfortable with converting my current OS to be able to play games there as a second-last resort.
I read many pages on how to do this, but the information seemed outdated, so I need advice from someone who does/tried this nowadays.

Which software should I use to run the P2V image of my current Win10 installation with the least performance hit? If I read things correctly, ESXi sounds good, but it is expensive too.
What software will get me an image compatible with that? Both Disk2VHD and StarWind V2V seem as good options generally.

If I could do this, then I could use Ubuntu daily and easily keep on moving my stuff over to the land of the penguin. Maybe even get others with Win7 laptops to follow.

Thanks for your help in advance!

PS.: I chose Ubuntu because it seems to be generally better supported. Based on what I read, it offers the best chance for something to work out-of-the-box.
Click to expand...
I had the same case as my Windows 10 and OpenSuse. To make Windows 10 VMDK I run Starwind V2V. Once I had OpenSuse installed and configured, I made an installation of VirtualBox over KVM as it just makes earlier to set up Bridged network connection (KVM is a server-grade hypervisor and lucks on WiFi support). And VMDK has fair support by VirtualBox. The set up works fine for almost a year (since Jun 2019).
 
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