F21 Workstation Hardware Requirements

[Josh Boyer]

On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Pete Travis <lists at petetravis.com> wrote:
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> On 09/01/2014 09:30 AM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
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>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 6:14 PM, Bruno Wolff III <bruno at wolff.to
>> <mailto:bruno at wolff.to>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Mon, Sep 01, 2014 at 16:19:22 +0300,
>>      Elad Alfassa <elad at fedoraproject.org <mailto:elad at fedoraproject.org>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>         However, "hardware accelerated graphics" shouldn't be in the
>> minimal -
>>         people will still run Workstation on VM platforms where it's
>> unavailable,
>>         eg. KVM/spice, we don't want them to think it's impossible to run
>> our own
>>         OS on our own virtualization platform.
>>         I think it would make more sense for "Hardware accelerated
>> graphics" to be
>>         in the recommended section.
>>
>>
>>     If you are using software for graphics you need a powerful CPU to make
>> the system usable. That is an odd combination on real hardware. So I think
>> for a recommendation it makes sense to suggest hardware graphic acceleration
>> for workstation. I think the running it as a VM on one's desktop is an
>> outlier case.
>>
>>
>> Running in a VM on a desktop is actually a very important usecase. We're
>> targeting developers after all, developers might develop to our platform and
>> test in a vm when running our platform or when running another platform.
>>
>> --
>> -Elad Alfassa.
>>
>>
>
>
> Virtualization opens an entirely different context for hardware
> requirements. QXL for guests hosted on my low power i3 utility server run
> gnome-shell quite acceptably; my i7 workstation brings that up to
> near-native for modern integrated graphics.  Traditional cirrus type
> graphics deliver a wholly unusable experience on the same hardware.  QXL
> isn't a magic bullet, though; on hosts with older hardware, performance
> definitely degrades.  I don't have a lot of experience with VMWare or vbox
> stacks, but I assume there is a spectrum of unacceptable to adequate to
> excellent there as well.
>
> Maybe some guidelines specifically for virtualized instances of Workstation
> would be a good idea.  Recommend SPICE/QXL, with general guidelines for
> other solutions, ie "For best results using Fedora Workstation as a virtual
> machine, SPICE graphics with the QXL virtual graphics adapter are
> recommended [link to explanation].  Other virtualization solutions should
> provide adequate virtualized graphics hardware to ensure the best possible
> experience."

Separate guidelines for VMs would be a good idea.  I'm not sure I'd go
into non-KVM setups though.  I don't think we're realistically going
to be able to 1) target those and 2) test them.

> ....and maybe something brief about how testing/development in a VM doesn't
> actually require a responsive desktop environment?

Er... that's somewhat confusing given we're talking about the
Workstation product in a VM.  I think we'd want to make a good
impression of the product in a VM to entice people to install it on
their real hardware.  Having a responsive desktop for the "desktop"
product is probably a high priority.

josh