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There are sane people with this many VMs on a personal machine, right? RIGHT? (startrek.website)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by data1701d@startrek.website to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Half of these exist because I was bored once.

The Windows 10 and MacOS ones are GPU passthrough enabled and what I occasionally use if I have to use a Windows or Mac application. Windows 7 is also GPU enabled, but is more a nostalgia thing than anything.

I think my PopOS VM was originally installed for fun, but I used it along with my Arch Linux, Debian 12 and Testing (I run Testing on host, but I wanted a fresh environment and was too lazy to spin up a Docker or chroot), Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora to test various software builds and bugs, as I don't like touching normal Ubuntu unless I must.

The Windows Server 2022 one is one I recently spun up to mess with Windows Docker Containers (I have to port an app to Windows, and was looking at that for CI). That all become moot when I found out Github's CI doesn't support Windows Docker containers despite supporting Windows runners (The organization I'm doing it for uses Github, so I have to use it).

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[-] IsusRamzy@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

You can say: "I use Arch, Fedora, Windows, MacOS, Gentoo, LFS, Debian, PopOS, and more, btw."

[-] nezach@discuss.tchncs.de 46 points 2 weeks ago

1000167081

[-] tuck182@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

*sane

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

*some

[-] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

*lame

[-] fl42v@lemmy.ml 31 points 2 weeks ago

I guess you should use proxmox at this point 🤣

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly they really should

[-] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I mean is there any really reason though, they both run on the same subsystem and they aren’t doing anything crazy

[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 22 points 2 weeks ago

There are many many many insane people who are running no virtual machines at all.

[-] Gallardo994@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 weeks ago

Mutahar please log in to your main account

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[-] tdawg@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

linux users are sane?

[-] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 15 points 2 weeks ago

With that many Windows (gasp) ones, no... I'm afraid you are not

[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, but usually they'd have a more robust VM management system to stay sane for long.

[-] lnxtx@feddit.nl 9 points 2 weeks ago

Hell to update them regularly 👀

[-] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 4 days ago

That’s why I’m starting to prefer LTSC.

[-] Dagamant@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Nah, most of the windows ones don’t get updates any more and the Linux ones can get a script that updates on boot. Takes longer to start up but handles the job itself.

[-] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 9 points 2 weeks ago

I think you have a problem, there needs to be more to be normal.

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[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I have about twice this many VMs and about this many running at any given time.

I use Qubes btw

[-] sntx@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

What do you use it for? How's the daily-driver experience?

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 8 points 2 weeks ago

Its my only computer. I couldn't go back to anything else. Every time I double click Firefox, it opens a new VM. When I close Firefox, the VM is destroyed.

Email is in a separate VM. Email attachments also open in a disposable VM. USB devices are quarantined unless I connect them to a specific VM. Its a game changer.

Cons: I need as much ram as I used to need when I ran Windows. Watching videos is a bit choppy at full screen sometimes. And I can't play any video games.

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago

Sounds like some pretty serious cons

Out of curiosity why do you like qubes? Having everything in a VM doesn't sound that great to me

I get that the main concern of it is security but what do you do that it demands that level of hardening? I've only ever got one virus in my life that I know of as it is and that was on windows

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 3 points 2 weeks ago

Lol wut? Those pros far outweigh the cons. But I guess I don't care about video games?

I have money on my computer, and I have a company that has customer info. That's enough of a reason for me to want to protect my shit better than running one big, super-vulnerable system

[-] radau@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

Not op but I do a lot of architecture and infrastructure work on top of my normal dev work so keeping everything separated and per-client has become a pretty important advantage for me personally

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah I also consult with many different clients. Sometimes those clients need me to install sketch software. Thank god I can do this in a silo in Qubes, or it could endanger my other clients.

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[-] radau@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

Fwiw I had to tinker a bit to get good video playback, Fedora was always choppy for me for some reason but debian is typically smooth with hw accel disabled.

As for the gaming, depending on your setup (I have a desktop and T480 I keep in sync) you can absolutely run two video cards and do PCI passthrough on one to a gaming VM. I have mine set up with a dedicated NIC and USB card and just use a KVM to swap between Qubes and Windows (for now) and it's worked really well. Had to play around a ton to get the full speed out of the GPU though and it only seemed to work in windows so hopefully get that going for a Linux hvm one day.

Absolutely agree there is no going back, I have all of my work stuff entirely hardware agnostic and a full on replica of my work desktop ready to go in a moment should the desktop die. Apart from that keeping client work isolated has been such a game changer.

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[-] marcie@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

itd be bad as a daily driver imo

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

Is this like opening tons of browser tabs?

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 7 points 2 weeks ago

The biggest reason why I don't want maintain so many Vms is, because all the maintenance and updates that involve doing so.

[-] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 2 weeks ago

And that's why there's a "-2" on the end of that arch vm - there was one before that I borked while trying to update it because I hadn't used it in so long.

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 weeks ago

It's only insane if you have them all running at once.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Interesting enough, there is a project that I've found that runs Windows in a Docker container as a VM.

https://github.com/dockur/windows

I run a Windows 10 LTSC that way to run things like Blue Iris for my security cameras, and some stuff to track my solar installation.

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[-] Damage@feddit.it 5 points 2 weeks ago

I mean, people collect all sorts of weird shit

[-] veroxii@aussie.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago

Not VMs but I have way more docker containers. I run most things as containers which keeps the base OS nice and clean and free from dependency hell.

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[-] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 4 points 2 weeks ago

How much disk space have you got??

[-] data1701d@startrek.website 10 points 2 weeks ago

It's a terabyte SSD. I've currently got 136 GB left on it. I think part of it might be they're auto-expanding qcow2 images, so they don't actually take up the full space provisioned for them.

[-] cinnamon_tea@programming.dev 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I have probably a couple of more Linux/BSD VMs than here (with some with GPU passthrough and one or two for ARM crossbuilding and so on) but only 2 Windows VMs - the only 2 I have legitimate licenses for.

But am I normal? Most would disagree. 😅

[-] data1701d@startrek.website 4 points 2 weeks ago

10, plain 11, 7, and funny enough, Server 2022 are all legit licenses (I can get a key for server through my university). Actually, I'm pretty sure the 11 one, I upgraded a Windows 7 VM to 10, then to 11.

Every other Windows version that needs it (11 LTSC, 8.1, and Vista), I just temporarily host a phony KMS server whenever it needs to be reactivated.

I apologize for talking so much about Windows on a Linux sub. May Stallman break into my house and give me 10 lashes as I slumber.

[-] cinnamon_tea@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago

The Windows XP and Windows 7 I have are also from my university, from a long long time ago.😃

[-] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

not even sure distro tube has this many lmao

[-] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

I always remove any virtual machines every time I'm done with it and reinstall if I need to use it again

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[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Looks normal for testing stuff. I have 5ish in my desktop hypervisor.

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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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