With AMD's Zen around the corner, I am getting ideas about what I might do with a crazy number of CPU cores.
I am looking to build a computer for use as a multi-seat workstation. I would like to have my host be some very stripped down OS (as close to "bare metal" as possible), and exclusively do all my work and play in various virtual machines. I am also intrigued by the concept of using dockers, but that is something I know even less about. I want to run 3 OSs, at least one of which will be Windows 10, and at least one of which will be some flavor of Linux.
My essential requirements are:
1. Pass-through of USB, video, audio, and network devices, such that I have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor bound to each OS.
2. Easy and fast access to shared storage from all devices.
3. Seamless copy-paste between OSs
4. Seamless boot- When I turn on the machine, all VMs are launched.
5. Better than 90% native performance (including for gaming).
Is this doable?
From what I've read so far, my thinking is to set it up like this:
- 8 core CPU, server board, three video cards of different types (one nice and two cheap), one PCI audio card, USB card with multiple controllers, lots of RAM
- FreeBSD (if possible, I'm unclear about the status of KVM for freeBSD) or CentOS with KVM
-Host OS on an M.2 drive
-VMs stored in a ZFS pool.
- A Windows 10 VM (for data science, media and a little gaming), a work Linux VM (for data science), and a Linux VM specifically for web browsing.
- The Windows 10 VM uses the nice video card, the PCI audio card, and its own network controller and usb controllers.
- The work Linux VM uses a cheap video card, no audio, and its own network and USB controllers
- The web browsing Linux VM uses a cheap video card and on-board audio.
Anyway, I'm open to suggestions regarding all my choices: hardware, virtualization solutions (although I'm guessing most people here are partial to KVM), file system choice etc. I'm also curious what people think will be the main hurdles (I'm particularly worried about the audio).
Any advice or relevant experience people can share would be greatly appreciated.
I am looking to build a computer for use as a multi-seat workstation. I would like to have my host be some very stripped down OS (as close to "bare metal" as possible), and exclusively do all my work and play in various virtual machines. I am also intrigued by the concept of using dockers, but that is something I know even less about. I want to run 3 OSs, at least one of which will be Windows 10, and at least one of which will be some flavor of Linux.
My essential requirements are:
1. Pass-through of USB, video, audio, and network devices, such that I have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor bound to each OS.
2. Easy and fast access to shared storage from all devices.
3. Seamless copy-paste between OSs
4. Seamless boot- When I turn on the machine, all VMs are launched.
5. Better than 90% native performance (including for gaming).
Is this doable?
From what I've read so far, my thinking is to set it up like this:
- 8 core CPU, server board, three video cards of different types (one nice and two cheap), one PCI audio card, USB card with multiple controllers, lots of RAM
- FreeBSD (if possible, I'm unclear about the status of KVM for freeBSD) or CentOS with KVM
-Host OS on an M.2 drive
-VMs stored in a ZFS pool.
- A Windows 10 VM (for data science, media and a little gaming), a work Linux VM (for data science), and a Linux VM specifically for web browsing.
- The Windows 10 VM uses the nice video card, the PCI audio card, and its own network controller and usb controllers.
- The work Linux VM uses a cheap video card, no audio, and its own network and USB controllers
- The web browsing Linux VM uses a cheap video card and on-board audio.
Anyway, I'm open to suggestions regarding all my choices: hardware, virtualization solutions (although I'm guessing most people here are partial to KVM), file system choice etc. I'm also curious what people think will be the main hurdles (I'm particularly worried about the audio).
Any advice or relevant experience people can share would be greatly appreciated.