TLDR; tell me if this is a waste of time before I spend forever tinkering on something that will always be janky

I want to run multiple OSs on one machine including Linux, Windows, and maybe OSX from a host with multiple GPUs + igpu. I know there are multiple solutions but I’m looking for advice, opinions and experience. I know I can google how-to but is this worh pursuing?

I currently dual boot Bazzite and Ubuntu, for gaming and develoent respectively. I love Bazzite ease of updates and Ubuntu is where it’s at for testing and building frontier AI/ML tools.

What if I kept my computer running a thin hypervisor 24/7 and switched VMs based on my working context? I could pass through hardware as needed.

Proxmox? XCP-NG? Debian + QEMU? Anyone living with these as their computing machines (not homelabs/server hosts)?

This is inspired by Chris Tidus’s (YouTube) setup on arch but 1) i don’t know arch 2) I have a fairly beefy i7 265k 192gb build, but he’s on an enterprise xenon ddr5 build so in a differenrent power class 3) I have a heterogenous mix of graphics cards I’m hoping to pass though depending on workload

Use cases:

  • Bazzite + 1 gpu for gaming
  • Ubuntu + 1 or more GPUs for work
  • Windows + 0 or more GPU Music Production paid vstis and kernel-level anti cheat games (GTAV, etc)
  • OSX? Lightroom? GPU?

Edit: Thank you all for your thoughts and contributions

Edit: what I’ve learned

  • this is viable but might be a pain
  • a Windows VM for getting around anti-cheat in vames defeats the purpose. I’d need a dual boot for that use case
  • hyperV is a no. Qubes Qemu libvirt, yes
  • may want to just put everything on sparate disks and boot / VM into them as needed

Edit: distrobox/docker works great but doesn’t fit all my needs because I can’t install kernel-level modules in them (AFAIK)

  • InnerScientist@lemmy.world
    16·
    2 days ago

    Windows vms for beating kernel level anticheat takes a lot of work to prevent detection. I recommend dual booting instead for that use case.

    For the Linux environments I’d recommend using containers/podman/docker, systemd-nspawn or libvirt. These three solutions use the host kernel as the hypervisor and don’t require much setup.

    Containers can also share the GPU with the host easily.

    Your setup would be Hardware > Windows | Bazzite > Ubuntu(container) | OSX (libvirtd)

    Edit: You can also triple boot with windows, Bazzite and Ubuntu or add a proxmox/whatever hypervisor disk and try it out without touching your working system.

    • afk_strats@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’ve read through the thread and your edit sounds like the best option for me. It gives direct hardware access and gets everything working right away but allows me to try out a hypervisor solution.

      I love and use containers/Distrobox all the time and it all works great except that I do run into problems with firmware and kernel modules because you can’t containerize that or I haven’t figured it out yet.