this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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There are sane people with this many VMs on a personal machine, right? RIGHT? (startrek.website)
submitted 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) by data1701d@startrek.website to c/linux@lemmy.ml
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] olympicyes@lemmy.world 1 points 11 minutes ago

I have about that many. Looks good to me! I have two Windows VMs. One for work and presentations. One for games and Adobe. A bunch of random Linux VMs trying to get a FireWire card to work and a Windows 7 VM for the same reason. I’ve also for several Linux VMs trying out new versions of Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian. A couple servers. Almost none of them are ever turned on because my real virtualized workloads run in docker or LXC! I never could get Mac VM to work but I have an AMD CPU and a MacBook so not too high priority.

[–] Psyhackological@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 minutes ago

Have you automated creation?

[–] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 2 points 31 minutes ago

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

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 9 points 4 hours ago

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

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 hours ago

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

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

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

I use Qubes btw

[–] furycd001@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

GPU passthrough has always been one of those exciting ideas I’d love to dive into one day. My current GPU being a little older, has only 4GB of RAM. Oh the joy's of being a budget PC user. Thankfully it's more of a "would be nice rather" than an "actually need"....

[–] olympicyes@lemmy.world 1 points 3 minutes ago

Very few people need it but it’s awesome and a lot of fun and lets you spend more time in Linux than dealing with Windows. The VFIO Reddit and Arch wiki are great resources. I have GPU, USB, and Ethernet pass through on my Ubuntu machine and it works great, but I needed the Arch wiki to really figure out what I was doing wrong when I first set it up. Level1Techs is also a good resource on YouTube and forums because they are big into VFIO and SR-IOV. Next time you get a PC, make sure to look for more PCI lanes and bifurcation support on your motherboard. Gen 4 is a great option because it generally has enough lanes and the ram and ssd are much cheaper than Gen 5. GPU choice doesnt matter much but if you’ve got AMD watch out for the reset bug. Basically you can start a VM but once you quit it the cards state is unavailable for further use (eg a second VM session or reopening your DE if you’re using a single GPU setup) unless you restart your host. There are some workarounds but personally I’d avoid it if possible. Onboard graphics (iris or amd APU) are recommended. Older hardware can get cheap so good luck saving up if this is something you want to do!

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Well I do but I have a machine with 3/4 of a terabyte of memory on it.

Work scraps are great sometimes.

How are you running the MacOS VMs. The machine I have is a cheese grater so that makes it easier.

[–] olympicyes@lemmy.world 1 points 1 minute ago

Are you running macOS or Linux as your host? My MacBook is M1 and I found the performance running ARM windows and ARM Fedora via UTM (qemu) to be pretty good.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I found a prebuilt OpenCore for KVM. https://github.com/thenickdude/KVM-Opencore

I then changed the config.plist to make it think it was a 2019 Mac Pro.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 2 points 40 minutes ago

Ok I’ll have to try this. The weird thing is my little test proxmox server is a 2013 trashcan. So this would be like a hackintosh running on Mac hardware. Would that technically be a hackintosh? I’m not really sure. According to the Apple license you can virtualize MacOS if it’s running on Mac hardware. I’m not sure if that requires MacOS as the hypervisor. Regardless this is not something I knew about. Very cool. Thanks for the info.

[–] Gallardo994@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 hours ago

Mutahar please log in to your main account

[–] Damage@feddit.it 5 points 9 hours ago

I mean, people collect all sorts of weird shit

[–] nezach@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

1000167081

[–] tuck182@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

*sane

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 hours ago

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

[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 3 points 8 hours 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.

[–] wulf@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I run a different LXC on Proxmox for every service, so it's a bunch. Probably a better way to do it since most of those just run a docker container inside them.

[–] waspentalive@lemmy.one 1 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Why mix docker and VMs? Isn't docker sort of like a VM, an application-level VM maybe? (I obviously do not understand Docker well)

[–] Kovukono@pawb.social 2 points 5 hours ago

Serious answer, I'm not sure why someone would run a VM to run just a container inside the VM, aside from the VM providing volumes (directories) to the VM. That said, VMs are perfectly capable of running containers, and can run multiple containers without issue. For work, our Gitlab instance has runners that are VMs that just run containers.

Fun answer, have you heard of Docker in Docker?

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 2 points 7 hours ago

I like to run a hypervisor host as just that, a hypervisor host. The host being stable is important, and also reduce attack surface by only having it as that.

An LXC per service is somewhat overkill. A docker host running on LXC could likely run all the docker containers.

[–] fl42v@lemmy.ml 19 points 14 hours ago

I guess you should use proxmox at this point 🤣

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Hell to update them regularly 👀

[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours 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.

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

linux users are sane?

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 1 points 13 hours ago

insert MORE, MORE!-Kylo Ren meme here

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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 13 hours 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.

[–] Flyberius@hexbear.net 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I've had physical esx servers running this many VMS simultaneously, and I can totally see why a hobbiest or dev would have a need for this many VMs on standby. You are sane, yes

[–] bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago

Bahah i have like 7 but im concerned by the fact i probably forgot the password to half of em xD

[–] ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.place 3 points 13 hours ago

I do have as many too at work.

I use one VM for each iteration of my automation software. Our factory has machines ranging from the 90s to present day, and they use different software environments to be programmed. In order to minimize the risk of data loss, we have one virtual machine with every software environment, that way if one gets corrupted, the damage is contained. It also makes them easier to export to new computers when we need to replace ours.

[–] Auster@lemm.ee 2 points 12 hours ago

On the joke, define "sane". 😬

On a serious note, I think there are valid reasons to have several VMs other than "I was bored". In my case, for example, I have a total of 7 VMs, where 2 are miscellaneous systems to test things out, 2 are for stuff that I can't normally run on Linux, 2 are offline VMs for language dictionaries, and 1 is a BlissOS VM with Google programs in case I can't/don't want to use my phone.

[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

How much disk space have you got??

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 10 points 14 hours 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.

[–] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

Yeah.

My home server runs that many, but it's a monster dual xeon.

The freebsd instances have a ton of jails, the Linux vms have a ton of lxc and docker containers.

It's how you run many services without losing your mind.

[–] cinnamon_tea@programming.dev 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

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 14 hours ago (1 children)

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 14 hours ago

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

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

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

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago

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