Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: William Witteman via talk 

| I am poking around in Android development, and I have run into a snag
| as my machine is pretty old, and doesn't have, or doesn't have
| enabled, some virtual machine features.  Specifically:
| 
| > To use VM acceleration on Linux, your computer must also meet these 
requirements:
| >
| > For Intel processors: Support for Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Intel 
EM64T (Intel 64)
| > features, and Execute Disable (XD) Bit functionality enabled.
| > For AMD processors: Support for AMD Virtualization (AMD-V).
| 
| I am not at all sure that my machine will do this - 

Apparently this half of your message was a throw-away, and we were
supposed to ignore it.  Odd.

| if I was looking
| for a new machine, are there any caveats, warnings, red flags to watch
| for?  I'd prefer not to have to spend a ton of time/money thinking
| about my hardware - I'd like it to run Debian with as little messing
| about as possible.

Only you know what features you would find useful.  You haven't
answered previous questions so I won't ask you to explain what you
want.

I'm guessing that you don't really want to get your hands dirty.  If
so, I suggest you pick a laptop.

Me?  I still like desktops.

- expandable / upgradability (within limits)

- faster

- more RAM, HDD space

Clearly your choices would be different from mine.  If you care about
my thoughts, from two years ago:


A really good notebook is getting to be about $2k -- wow.
You can find useful ones at about $400-$600.

For Linux, I think that it is a good idea to avoid NVidia GPUs.  Intel
ones (built into their CPUs) are fine for what I do.

Avoid notebooks with no RAM sockets.  You might want to add RAM.
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[Lennart Sorensen via talk]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 03:09:32PM -0400, William Witteman wrote:
> Thank you for your help!
> 
> My CPU isn't relevant to this - I have determined that it predates
> these features.

Most Core 2 Duo and Quad support it.  It has to be very old to not
support it, or one of the models intel purposely disabled it (like a
few Q8xxx and Q9xxx models).

> The CMOS battery is definitely an easy fix, and I even have CR2032s
> kicking around - it's just never been important enough to fix.
> 
> I was looking for any warning or things I should watch out for getting
> a new system.  Thanks.

Oh.  Want new toys.  My last purchases were apparently so severely
overkill that now I haven't got to buy anything new in like 7 years.

For linux support (assuming that is what is important) with kvm pretty
much any current intel or amd cpu should do.  I can't think of any that
don't support that given windows is using hyperv features for a lot of
things now which requires those features.

AHCI and NVMe disk interfaces seem to be standardized well enough that
those tend to just work.

Network controllers can be a problem if it is too new to be supported
in the kernel yet, which sometimes happens.

Probably no reason to go less than 32GB these days, although I haven't
checked desktop ram prices in a while.  I guess 16GB is enough for a
lot of people too, although I haven't had that little in a long time.

Video should at least work in VGA mode, and usually better without too
much trouble.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[William Witteman via talk]

Thank you for your help!

My CPU isn't relevant to this - I have determined that it predates
these features.

The CMOS battery is definitely an easy fix, and I even have CR2032s
kicking around - it's just never been important enough to fix.

I was looking for any warning or things I should watch out for getting
a new system.  Thanks.

On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 14:19, Lennart Sorensen
 wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 01:02:36PM -0400, William Witteman via talk wrote:
> > Yeah, that's the crux of it - my CPU is definitely 10+ years old.
> >
> > The magic of Linux has meant that my quad core machine with 2 Gb of
> > RAM has been serving me well for a decade.
> >
> > The only problem the machine has given me is that the CMOS battery
> > died, so I have to reset the time whenever there's a power outage.
>
> On many motherboards the battery is a plain old CR2032 in a pop in holder.
> Worth checking if it would be trivial to swap out.
>
> So what CPU model is it?
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[Lennart Sorensen via talk]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 01:02:36PM -0400, William Witteman via talk wrote:
> Yeah, that's the crux of it - my CPU is definitely 10+ years old.
> 
> The magic of Linux has meant that my quad core machine with 2 Gb of
> RAM has been serving me well for a decade.
> 
> The only problem the machine has given me is that the CMOS battery
> died, so I have to reset the time whenever there's a power outage.

On many motherboards the battery is a plain old CR2032 in a pop in holder.
Worth checking if it would be trivial to swap out.

So what CPU model is it?

-- 
Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: William Witteman via talk 

| Yeah, that's the crux of it - my CPU is definitely 10+ years old.

You still haven't told us the model of your CPU.

A good problem report includes enough data to work on the problem.

| The magic of Linux has meant that my quad core machine with 2 Gb of
| RAM has been serving me well for a decade.
| 
| The only problem the machine has given me is that the CMOS battery
| died, so I have to reset the time whenever there's a power outage.

That's almost certainl easy to fix.  There is a little battery on the
motherboard that needs to be replaced.  It is chrome-coloured.  It's a
disk.

- remember its orientation (+ up or + down)

- find its model number (eg. cr2032)

- buy a replacement and install it.  Many sizes are available
  inexpensively at Dollarama.  But in these times, perhaps ebay or
  amazon are safer.
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[William Witteman via talk]

Yeah, that's the crux of it - my CPU is definitely 10+ years old.

The magic of Linux has meant that my quad core machine with 2 Gb of
RAM has been serving me well for a decade.

The only problem the machine has given me is that the CMOS battery
died, so I have to reset the time whenever there's a power outage.

Thanks to all!

On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 12:25, Lennart Sorensen
 wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 03:45:30PM -0400, William Witteman via talk wrote:
> > I am poking around in Android development, and I have run into a snag
> > as my machine is pretty old, and doesn't have, or doesn't have
> > enabled, some virtual machine features.  Specifically:
> >
> > > To use VM acceleration on Linux, your computer must also meet these 
> > > requirements:
> > >
> > > For Intel processors: Support for Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Intel 
> > > EM64T (Intel 64)
> > > features, and Execute Disable (XD) Bit functionality enabled.
> > > For AMD processors: Support for AMD Virtualization (AMD-V).
> >
> > I am not at all sure that my machine will do this - if I was looking
> > for a new machine, are there any caveats, warnings, red flags to watch
> > for?  I'd prefer not to have to spend a ton of time/money thinking
> > about my hardware - I'd like it to run Debian with as little messing
> > about as possible.
>
> How old is your machine?  Those features have been available on most
> machines for 10+ years, although sometimes you have to change a BIOS
> setting to enable them.
>
> /proc/cpuinfo ought to show if it is available.
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[Lennart Sorensen via talk]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 03:45:30PM -0400, William Witteman via talk wrote:
> I am poking around in Android development, and I have run into a snag
> as my machine is pretty old, and doesn't have, or doesn't have
> enabled, some virtual machine features.  Specifically:
> 
> > To use VM acceleration on Linux, your computer must also meet these 
> > requirements:
> >
> > For Intel processors: Support for Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Intel 
> > EM64T (Intel 64)
> > features, and Execute Disable (XD) Bit functionality enabled.
> > For AMD processors: Support for AMD Virtualization (AMD-V).
> 
> I am not at all sure that my machine will do this - if I was looking
> for a new machine, are there any caveats, warnings, red flags to watch
> for?  I'd prefer not to have to spend a ton of time/money thinking
> about my hardware - I'd like it to run Debian with as little messing
> about as possible.

How old is your machine?  Those features have been available on most
machines for 10+ years, although sometimes you have to change a BIOS
setting to enable them.

/proc/cpuinfo ought to show if it is available.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] VM Support in Linux

[Giles Orr via talk]

On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 at 15:45, William Witteman via talk  wrote:
>
> I am poking around in Android development, and I have run into a snag
> as my machine is pretty old, and doesn't have, or doesn't have
> enabled, some virtual machine features.  Specifically:
>
> > To use VM acceleration on Linux, your computer must also meet these 
> > requirements:
> >
> > For Intel processors: Support for Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Intel 
> > EM64T (Intel 64)
> > features, and Execute Disable (XD) Bit functionality enabled.
> > For AMD processors: Support for AMD Virtualization (AMD-V).
>
> I am not at all sure that my machine will do this - if I was looking
> for a new machine, are there any caveats, warnings, red flags to watch
> for?  I'd prefer not to have to spend a ton of time/money thinking
> about my hardware - I'd like it to run Debian with as little messing
> about as possible.

I'm not sure if you were asking about the current machine at all, and
I admit this is straight-up DuckDuckGo searching, but this seems to be
a very good article about how to determine if your current machine
supports the features you're interested in:

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-xen-vmware-kvm-intel-vt-amd-v-support/

What I've always been less clear about is: what would the above tell
you if your machine supported VT-x _but_ VT-x was turned off in the
BIOS?

NOT an expert on the "new machine" question ... but I _think_ almost
anything new would have very good VM support?  I assume someone else
more knowledgeable will weigh in on that.  The one feature you really
want if you're tinkering with VMs much is MEMORY.  Get as much as you
can afford.  Most machines these days have 8G, and this is workable if
you're only running one or two VMs and not heavily taxing the base
machine ... but more is most definitely better.  You'll probably be
needing hard drive space as well - if you have multiple VM images,
they'll eat into your storage even when you're not running them.  This
isn't as important as memory, just don't go with the machine with the
really tiny SSD: get the mid-sized (or larger) SSD.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
giles...@gmail.com
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