Re: Virtual noobie

[Bob Weber <bobrweber@gmail.com>]

...Bob

On 08/18/2015 07:43 PM, doug wrote:

On 08/18/2015 07:17 PM, Bob Weber wrote:

/snip/

I also use the kvm/qemu packages.  There is also a GUI that makes setting up and running VMs very easy.  Its Virtual Machine Manager and it uses libvirtd to manage machines.  I have also at one time installed bsd and it ran fine.  You can also try out different live cd by just downloading the ISO and connecting it to a guest in Virtual Machine Manager.  Installs are done this way also.

Have fun!

...Bob

somewhat off topic, I guess, but, question:

I tried some time ago to install a BSD but it wanted something other than ntfs or extx file system, and I had to
make a special partition for it that nothing else could read. I finally decided it was too different, but if you
install a BSD under a vm, what does it do about the file system?

--doug

The OS that is running as a guest is responsible for the file system it uses.  There is a file on the host created with qemu-img that is presented to the guest as a hard disk that is totally isolated from the host.  Therefore, the host doesn't need to mount the guest file system so the guest is free to partition and format the "disk" as it sees fit.  If the file system on the image file is known by the host it can be mounted and viewed by the host if the guest is not running.  The commands for this are (on debian testing anyway):

# on the host run...
# install module
modprobe nbd max_part=8

# connect image
qemu-nbd --connect=/dev/nbd0 xxxx.img

#  Mount partition one
mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt/foo

Make sure you unmount the partition and disconnect the /dev/nbd... device before running the guest again.  Things get messed up badly if you forget this part.

When I decided to go with kvm, virtualbox had been taken over by oracle.  I was worried that it would become proprietary or inhibited in some way.  I remember an earlier sun version wouldn't allow you to connect host usb devices ... only commercial versions allowed this.  With qemu/kvm I have hot connected a usb host bluetooth device to debian and Win10 guests and been able to play music through external bluetooth headphones from the guest!  Thats quite an achievement if you have ever played with bluetooth audio devices.

...bob