----- Original Message ----- > From: "Marc Haber" <mh+kvm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: "KVM" <kvm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2012 7:47:11 AM > Subject: [user question] Opinions about running Windows in KVM > > Hi, > > I am a heavy user of virtualization in my private zoo of systems. My > main Operating System is Debian, and I am running a multitude of > other > Linuxen inside KVM, and also a handful of Windows systems that are > still using VirtualBox. > > However, VirtualBox has losing attractivity since there are issues > that prevent current VirtualBox from being packaged for Debian > (VirtualBox 4.2 needing the non-free OpenWatcom compiler to build), > and the latest VirtualBox in Debian (4.1.18) does not build its > kernel > module with Linux 3.7. > > I would therefore like to migrate my Windows guests to KVM as well. > Judging from what one finds on the net, this is possible thanks to > Fedora/Red Hat's work on virtio-win, which has not been updated since > july 2012. The documentation on > http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers/Download_Drivers > has > also not been touched in a while. I'll check to see if there are newer drivers available but they don't change that often. http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/bin/ > > I proceeded to do a test install of Windows 7 in a KVM VM which only > worked after configuring a second virtual CD-ROM drive and giving the > Windows 7 installer access to the virtio-win.iso from the very > beginning (the dreaded F6 option). If it's important, the VM is > configured with libvirt 0.9.15, has two virtual cores off a Core i7 > Quad Core host and 2 Gigs of RAM. libvirt's Virtual Machine Manager > is > used to get access to the VM's graphics console. Another approach is the put those drivers in a virtual floppy drive > > After the install and the resulting patch orgy finished, I noticed > that the KVM-based Windows install was running much slower than an > existing Windows 7 guest running under VirtualBox (on the same > hardware and a similiarly configured VM), which is odd since > sparkling new Windows installs usually tend to run much better than > an Where you using virtio-blk or emulated IDE? > install that has been used for months. A few benchmarks showed that > the KVM-based Windows suffers from I/O performance that is almost an > order of magnitude slower than the one running based on VirtualBox. > > I would like to know whether I did something wrong, or if there is > another way to achieve compareable I/O performance in a Windows VM on > KVM than it is reachable with a trivial VirtualBox installation. > > On another point: The VirtualBox graphics drivers for Windows have an > option to couple the Windows desktop size to the size of the guest > Window. That is, when I resize the X11 Window that shows the VM > desktop, the desktop is automatically resized to fill the window > completely. Try using spice with the windows guest tools which will give you copy and paste, cursor handling, resolution matching etc. http://www.spice-space.org/download.html > > On KVM, I understand that the canonical way to run Windows in a VM is > to use the graphics drivers from VMWare as the graphics card emulated > by qemu-kvm is VMWare compatible. But it looks like this doesn't work > since Windows claims to have a "Standard VGA graphics adapter" which > is rather slow and only offers a list of standard screen resolutions > which also does not adapt to window size. I guess this is an issue > that I better address on a LibVirt mailing list, right? > > I would appreciate any comments, and - if appropriate - pointers to > other mailing lists that may help with getting Windows 7 to run > better > under KVM. > > Greetings > Marc > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im > Header > Mannheim, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 > 31958061 > Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 > 31958062 > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
