Virtualized desktop

[Jimmy Thrasibule]

Hi,

I'm looking to renew my hardware and I'm wondering how Fedora can help
me to virtualize my desktop environment.

My first go was to have 2 Intel NUC (or Gigabit BRIX) and 2 screens,
one computer more stable and one I can play with. I want to use both
screens with both
computers so this implies to also have two KVMs.

Then came the idea to virtualize everything. Make both computers a
hypervisor cluster (using Xen or KVM) and run all systems virtualized.
But at which point can this be done for desktop system?


Here are some points I'm blocking with:

1. I want two screens and be able take make each VM to use one (left
or right) or both screens. Maybe by pressing some keyboard shortcuts.

2. I want mouse a keyboard to be moved to the VM of my choice or
dedicated to one VM and use Synergy [1] for the others.

3. I will have somewhere a Windows VM so good support is needed.

4. What about the graphics? Can I still make use of Blender for
example? How the graphic card shared between each VM?

5. I'd like to make both hypervisor work together. Can I use the local
drive of each computer to ensure migration and folder sharing?


I see many advantages which this setup:

1. I can freely test, new VM and we are done.
2. I can make a snapshot at any time just in case and go back if my
system crashes.

And some drawbacks:

1. I will never have full performance of my hardware.


Is it for you something that can be done or no way?


[1] http://synergy-project.org/

[Cole Robinson]

On 06/28/2014 07:53 AM, Jimmy Thrasibule wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  I'm looking to renew my hardware and I'm wondering how Fedora can help
>  me to virtualize my desktop environment.
>  
>  My first go was to have 2 Intel NUC (or Gigabit BRIX) and 2 screens,
>  one computer more stable and one I can play with. I want to use both
>  screens with both
>  computers so this implies to also have two KVMs.
>  
>  Then came the idea to virtualize everything. Make both computers a
>  hypervisor cluster (using Xen or KVM) and run all systems virtualized.
>  But at which point can this be done for desktop system?
>  
>  
>  Here are some points I'm blocking with:
>  
>  1. I want two screens and be able take make each VM to use one (left
>  or right) or both screens. Maybe by pressing some keyboard shortcuts.
>   
Spice can do multihead, so I think this can be made to work, but I haven't
done it myself.

>  2. I want mouse a keyboard to be moved to the VM of my choice or
>  dedicated to one VM and use Synergy [1] for the others.
>   
Should work AFAIK, running synergy inside the VMs

>  3. I will have somewhere a Windows VM so good support is needed.
>   
'good support' is vague, but KVM runs Windows, and virtio drivers inside the
VM give very good performance.

>  4. What about the graphics? Can I still make use of Blender for
>  example? How the graphic card shared between each VM?
>   
This probably won't work the way you want it. There is on going work related
to graphics card passthrough, but it is only targeting very specific cards and
only GPU passthrough at that. Blender might still acceptably work using some
software rendering passthrough, but I'm just guessing. You'd need to try it
out and see.

>  5. I'd like to make both hypervisor work together. Can I use the
> local
>  drive of each computer to ensure migration and folder sharing?
>   
This is a little vague, but yes there are ways to share folders between host
and guest VM, and there are ways to share storage so that a VM can be
seamlessly migrated between hosts. It will take some manual configuration though.

>  
>  I see many advantages which this setup:
>  
>  1. I can freely test, new VM and we are done.
>  2. I can make a snapshot at any time just in case and go back if my
>  system crashes.
>  
>  And some drawbacks:
>  
>  1. I will never have full performance of my hardware.
>  
>  
>  Is it for you something that can be done or no way? 
For most use cases it's definitely an option, but it will take a decent amount
of work and configuration I think.

- Cole

[Jimmy Thrasibule]

Hi Cole,

The more I think about it and the more what I'm looking for is
actually a virtual machine manager.

I see it like a windows manager. Your computer boots and load this
virtual machine manager as it will be doing with GNOME, then you can
switch and manage the VMs as if they where windows. One can assign
a screen or two or other devices.

In a perfect world, I also see USB over IP to share devices connected on
another host.

> > 5. I'd like to make both hypervisor work together. Can I use
> the local
> > drive of each computer to ensure migration and folder sharing?
> >
>
>  This is a little vague, but yes there are ways to share folders between
>  host and guest VM, and there are ways to share storage so that a VM
>  can be seamlessly migrated between hosts. It will take some manual
>  configuration though. 
What I'm talking about here is to have something like GlusterFS
sharing the local disk space of all my hypervisors so VM can freely
move from one to another.

--
Jimmy