Anyone using Xen on a laptop?

Hello,

I'm still a bit of a Linux newbie (I've been dual booting between Ubuntu 11.1 and Windows 7 for a few months now, mostly driven by wanting to do more things with Android...) and I was wondering if anyone here had used Xen on a laptop to just fire up a HVM instead of dual booting.

My plan is to install, say, Ubuntu to act as both my working Linux install and as a hypervisor for a Windows 7 VM running on its own partition so that I can still boot it natively if needed.

I might jury-rig an Android x86 VM in a volume file too.

Any gotchas I should watch out for?
Is my plan downright crazy?

Hardware-wise I'm pretty much set on a Clevo P150EM with a 3720QM, AMD 7970m, 16GB of RAM.

Thanks,

Darkshado

 

AFAIK, you should carefully do your homework on what hardware is supported by Xen, and what kind of hypervisor it is...

1. I don't know if you want to use both Ubuntu as your working linux install AND as the dom0 OS that runs the type-1 hypervisor for the reason that if your ubuntu system was compromised, then so is the rest of your system.

2. Aside from the graphics card which I believe is nearly-communicating with the hardware, the software drivers (even in Windows) would be limited to the support of drivers running on dom0. That being said, if Xen or the OS on dom0 does not support a certain piece of hardware, neither will windows.

I'm wanting to do a Xen setup on my laptop as well, but still researching a "flawlessly working setup" of it... I think they have a list of supported hardware on their site.

 

Personally, I think that Windows Server 2008 or Windows 8 would be a better OS to run a type-1 hypervisor. If you want to stick with Linux, why not try OpenSUSE? Given its shared heritage with SLED, Xen support is generally pretty robust. I did try it on my ProBook, but I ran into some hardware issues and didn't feel like fighting with it... Ubuntu, on the other hand, well, I've used it a lot, and just can't see it performing well as a hyper-visor.

 

I dont see why you would need such a low level visualization setup. what you want (or at least what it seems for your post) is to run both linux, windows 7 and maybe android x86. what i dont get is why xen, kvm can do what you want with less pain, and even virtualbox could as well, with a little less performance but a LOT more ease.

 

jl1989: This thread is part of doing my homework, as a lot of information I've found out there was old and likely very outdated.

It's true that I'd probably be better off running the dom0 separately from my usual work install.

I'm considering low-level hardware virtualization because I'd like as little performance loss as possible. I've run some MS Virtual PC VMs in the past, and granted I wasn't using the most suitable hardware for that, I still wasn't too impressed by the performance.

I would like to be able to (game/use Odin/work in MS Access) on the Windows 7 VM, save then seamlessly (start a CM9 kang/learn more Linux and programming related stuff) right-away, again, with as little performance loss as possible.

Another reason I like the idea of virtualization is to be able to run multiple OSes without having to partition my system too much.

I still might just end up dual-booting, but I figured doing this might push my Linux use up, make me learn some stuff and be cool for the sheer geekiness of it...

 

I run Arch Linux, Debian test web server, and i have ran android x86, mac os x, and many different server distros for testing all in virtualbox under win7 pro 64-bit. with very little performance loss, the thing that make this possible is v-tech (intel: vt-x amd: AMD-v) as it allows for vm to run their thread closer to the cpu.

i run it like this is because i play a few games and run programs that can use the gpu, and i dont feel like messing with pass though in xen. i also hate dual booting, i would prefer linux over win7 but until this improve in VM gpu systems i just run linux in a vm.

 

Another option would be Cooperative Linux: Cooperative Linux

 

i have looked at that but its my understanding is that its only 32-bit and that you cant run it in 64-bit windows yet. otherwise that would be more convenient then VMs

 

Yeah, you're right, 32-bit only at this point: FAQ - coLinux

 

I might not have as much time to play around with all of this after all... I'll probably have to stick to Windows as my main OS for now. Again.

Thinking about it, there aren't any GPU intensive things I do in Linux just yet, so as long as the CPU isn't too hindered by running in a VM that should work quite well.

Plus if I can get the VM's image to boot natively (be it a VHD or something else through grub) that'd be just great.

Thanks for the insight guys,

Darkshado

 

Did you ever test this, and if so: what were the results?

 

Unfortunately no, I'm still waiting for the laptop following the 7970M bad batch issues. I've ordered a little over a month ago, on the 14th.

 

It's an interesting idea and I definitely encourage you to try it out, but there's a couple things I'd like to mention:

1) AFAIK Xen doesn't support ACPI S3 in dom0, so you won't be able to put your laptop to sleep without seeing unwanted side effects (namely data corruption) when it wakes up - if it wakes up at all.
2) By type 1 (bare metal) hypervisor standards, Xen isn't all that fast - most of the benchmarks I've seen over the past year or so show Xen in middle of the pack. Its ability to run on just about any hardware and its support for GPU passthrough do make it very appealing to individuals though.
3) If you plan on using GPU passthrough, make sure you stick with an AMD GPU. Nvidia GPUs are much more difficult to get working. Of course, this entire point hinges on the assumption that Clevo implemented support for VT-d in the BIOS in the first place...

 

you will find this helpfull

{Guide} Create a Gaming Virtual Machine

Xen, required VT-d of course as mentioned.

the benefit that some people are missing is that with VT-d and the right drivers you can run windows 7 64bit at only a 5-10% performance loss perhaps less and this includes running most Directx 11 titles via steam or origin, your favourite top spec windows games a on linux

the VM W7 os can be stripped down and just auto run steam from the save / snapshot so you basically have a direct path to origin or steam with the click of a button therefore not requiring a dual boot and keeping your main o/s fairly safe from junk.

 

Not really sure where the Quote, Add reply and rep buttons have gone.

I've like to express my gratitude to phill1978 for the link and info, I am currently struggling with a xen setup, and this has proved useful for me.

 

Doh ! i guess il miss out on the rep

nah, glad i could help mate


Phill

 

The main problem is that you need a separate GPU for gaming if you want to still run a linux desktop concurrently. It's not as straightforward as it sounds. PCI passthrough is massively complex, and GPU passthrough is a whole nother layer of complexity. It's hella freaking cool, if you have the hardware.

I'll just leave these here:
Xen PCI Passthrough - Xen
Xen VGA Passthrough - Xen

In terms of what the OP is talking about, it won't work because of licensing issues. The Xen-managed windows instance will require a re-authorization of the windows license since the hardware signatures will be different. So there is no way to easily pull this off unless you figure out a clever way around the windows licensing problem.

Also re: running Xen on laptops in general, it's not so friendly to cpu frequency scaling and power management. My battery life suffers greatly when I run Xen on my X220.

 

The OP can pass the 7970M into the VM and use Ivy Bridge processor graphics (HD 4000) to run the Linux desktop.

I interpreted what the OP said as "I'm blowing away my Windows partition and replacing it with a VM". But yes, if the OP is planning to keep the Windows partition then 2 copies of Windows are needed.

 

Exactly, it's pretty neat, if you have the hardware, which happens to be a spare gaming-class GPU just sitting there doin' nothin'.

OP's request is interesting to me only because of the idea of having the same partition used as a Xen DomU and also being able to boot into it natively.

 

The only problem would be figuring out how to force ether gpu to output to the screen be it internal or external. not to mention the keyboard and mouse/trackpad