Ditching Windows 7 > Zorin OS VM passthrough?

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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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I'm getting more and more tired of buggy AMD drivers on Win7, and Win7 being EOL (and AMD also giving Win7 users the middle finger by discontinuing support without any warning whatsoever, thanks Lisa Su /s) i'm interested in moving to Linux, in this case Zorin OS.

Question being: what about VM Passthrough for edge cases where some games might not work? Any resources to set passthrough up properly? Specs in sig.
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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Northern California
For some reason I’m not seeing your specs (maybe because I’m on mobile right now?)

In any case, to ensure I understand, you want to:

  • Run Zorin on bare metal
  • Run Windows 7 in a VM
  • Pass through a GPU through to the windows VM. If so, will it be a second GPU?
  • Anything I’m missing?
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
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For some reason I’m not seeing your specs (maybe because I’m on mobile right now?)

In any case, to ensure I understand, you want to:

  • Run Zorin on bare metal
  • Run Windows 7 in a VM
  • Pass through a GPU through to the windows VM. If so, will it be a second GPU?
  • Anything I’m missing?
Idea is a 6900 XT or 3090 as secondary GPU and something simple as a 1650 as primary. Hell, maybe i'll wait until Zen 4 comes out with 24 cores+a very small RDNA2 iGPU on the IOD, then I wouldn't have to use a 1650.
 

zer0sum

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Mar 8, 2013
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Why not just customize a Windows 10 iso exactly like you want it, and rip out all the privacy/tracking stuff?

Or just use Pihole or NextDNS?
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
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Why not just customize a Windows 10 iso exactly like you want it, and rip out all the privacy/tracking stuff?

Or just use Pihole or NextDNS?
Win10's UI is garbage. I HATE IT. If I cared about privacy I would be using Loonix.

That, and for some games that are coded like shit like STALKER no alt-tab to desktop is a massive headache.
 

Markess

Well-Known Member
May 19, 2018
1,146
761
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Northern California
Question being: what about VM Passthrough for edge cases where some games might not work? Any resources to set passthrough up properly? Specs in sig.
Idea is a 6900 XT or 3090 as secondary GPU and something simple as a 1650 as primary. Hell, maybe i'll wait until Zen 4 comes out with 24 cores+a very small RDNA2 iGPU on the IOD, then I wouldn't have to use a 1650.
Since Zorin is based on Ubuntu, you'll be able to use any one of the many Ubuntu based tutorials out there. The GUI based tutorial items will work/look a bit different, but probably won't be too hard to sort out. The terminal based work should be the same though.

You can do everything from terminal sessions via a command line if you want, but using a GUI based program like VirtManagerfor the bulk of it will be a lot easier.

To configure a machine for virtualization and create a VM, I used the tutorial at the first link for the most part, along with some of the entries from the second link for specific issues I ran into along the way (working through AMD GPU disconnect and NVIDIA error 43 for GPU passthrough for example). The tutorials are for Windows 10 install, but the bulk of the work is about getting the Linux side set up, and that will be the same regardless of which version of Windows you install.

Passthrough Archives - MathiasHueber.com
Virtualization Archives - Heiko's Blog

Any tutorial you use will start you off with IOMMU. I found that IOMMU Viewer from Pavel Elsig has been super helpful in mapping out IOMMU in my systems. Tutorial (and package download link) at the link below:


When you get ready to map out your IOMMU groups, its helpful to have something (anything really so long as you don't use two identical items) plugged into every PCIe slot and USB port. In some cases, an empty slot/port won't show up in IOMMU mapping programs/commands if there's nothing attached, so having something in each is great for mapping purposes.

Cheers!
 
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Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
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Hmm, that leaked low-end Xe DG2 GPU sounds amazing for what i'm planning on doing. Might be worth looking into in about half a year's time.