Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Proxmox for desktop pc - any one using?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Proxmox for desktop pc - any one using?

niceboyniceboy Veteran

Hi friends,

I never used linux for my desktop pc as I heard of lots of hardware in-compatibility issues on different forums.

But, yesterday I had some free time and started playing with proxmox on my spare vmx enabled vm and created my first vm and got an idea that for all my regular and experimental work, I could use different Vm's on my desktop pc instead of switching to a spare pc every time.

My question is, if I start using proxmox on my regular desktop, Am I going to have issues with hardware for Windows installed in a VM(printer/networking/scanner etc)?

thx.

Comments

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    Can't think of any issues at the moment - have not had any caffeine today.

    But why not just save the hassle and just use Hyper-V on Windows and create yourself several VMs?

    Thanked by 2niceboy Daniel15
  • devpdevp Member
    edited May 2022

    @niceboy said: I never used linux for my desktop pc as I heard of lots of hardware in-compatibility issues on different forums.

    Using linux for 13+ Years.

    Installed and launched more than 100k+ linux instances for personal learning and production applications designed and implemented.

    Linux Ecosystem is vast and exhaustive both in terms of Software and Hardware.

    Are you using iOS Mac Android than you are using a linux variant.

  • niceboyniceboy Veteran

    @DP I thought as windows is more susceptible to malware/virus infections, its better to go with something based on linux for the host system.

  • I think in Proxmox 7.2 there was a new feature that lets you use the GPU of the host in the guest very easily, IIRC it's called VirGL.

    Thanked by 1niceboy
  • DataIdeas-JoshDataIdeas-Josh Member, Patron Provider

    @dahartigan said:
    I think in Proxmox 7.2 there was a new feature that lets you use the GPU of the host in the guest very easily, IIRC it's called VirGL.

    Yes, the new version of proxmox makes it easier to passthrough devices to VMs.

    Now would I run proxmox as my "host" daily machine. Sounds like could be a fun experiment however you generally don't turn off a server. In this case your PC.

    If you want to dabble in VMs you can run https://www.virtualbox.org/ on your windows PC.
    Just some things to think about.

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    @DataIdeas-Josh said: If you want to dabble in VMs you can run https://www.virtualbox.org/ on your windows PC.

    Yeah I've used VirtualBox for many many years, until recently, a year ago, I experienced weird behaviors with it freezing randomly, only when I power on or off a VM.

    There could be several contributing factors but I couldn't be bothered to go hunt down the culprit(s) so I switched to Hyper-V and have not faced any issues so far.

  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran

    @devp said: Are you using iOS Mac Android than you are using a linux variant

    MacOS is based on BSD, not Linux. iOS is based on MacOS and therefore also based on BSD.

    @DataIdeas-Josh said: If you want to dabble in VMs you can run https://www.virtualbox.org/ on your windows PC.

    Why use VirtualBox if Hyper-V comes with Windows (at least with pro editions)?

    Thanked by 1LordSpock
  • DataIdeas-JoshDataIdeas-Josh Member, Patron Provider

    @Daniel15 said: Why use VirtualBox if Hyper-V comes with Windows (at least with pro editions)?

    I've been using VirtualBox since early Windows 7 days. For me it's just what I know on windows side. But now I personally use a mix of unraid and proxmox. Just depends on the full use case.

  • AlwaysSkintAlwaysSkint Member
    edited May 2022

    I double, sometimes triple-boot via grub, with linux my primary desktop OS. Then have VirtualBox for (most frequently) Windoze XP/7. This give me the options on booting Win10, Mint and another distro, in 'raw' format, plus the VMs.
    Yup, occasionally a VirtualBox DKMS update will screw things up but it's very rare for me. Given the resources that Win uses and the attack surface, I'd never do it the other way around i.e Windows as the host.

    [All other things being equal, I'd take a provider service that utilises linux as the host, rather than Windows - no contest.]

  • szymonpszymonp Member

    @devp said:

    @niceboy said: I never used linux for my desktop pc as I heard of lots of hardware in-compatibility issues on different forums.

    Using linux for 13+ Years.

    Installed and launched more than 100k+ linux instances for personal learning and production applications designed and implemented.

    Linux Ecosystem is vast and exhaustive both in terms of Software and Hardware.

    Are you using iOS Mac Android than you are using a linux variant.

    Mac and ios is unix not linux...

  • devpdevp Member
    edited May 2022

    @Daniel15 said: MacOS is based on BSD, not Linux. iOS is based on MacOS and therefore also based on BSD.

    @szymonp said: Mac and ios is unix not linux...

    Both BSD and GNU/Linux are unix-like operation system.

    Linux is only Kernel and that is the reason DIstro based on Linux kernel are called Linux Distributions.

    Linux Distributions OS are build by combining Linux Kernel and Software Packages.
    BSD is both Kernel and Distribution OS combined though seperate BSD Kernel is available.

    Debian systems ( a popular GNU/Linux distribution ) supports both Linux Kernel and FreeBSD Kernel.
    GNU/Hurd which is replacement for unix kernel is also available as unstable branch of Debian archive.

    Linux uses GPL License and BSD uses BSD License.

    Linux and Linux Distributions are open source and thus android is open source.
    iOS MacOS are based on Darwin which is derived from BSD and thus closed source.

    From consumer usage prospective both BSD OS and Linux based OS are similar to unix.
    Thus users using commandline generally find comfortable in iOS MacOS BSD Android and Linux Distributions to run and operate tasks.

    Linux Distributions are referred to as GNU/Linux as large parts of OS actually derived from work done on GNU Operating System.

    Reference Links:

  • wotetiwoteti Member

    Proxmox is pretty intrusive (for lack of better term) that, without advanced tweaking, you'll end up dedicating the host just for proxmox.

    What can it do that virtualbox, qemu gui, or lxd ui can't do on the desktop side?

    vbox is the best in my experience for passing devices to vm, but I don't think you'll find any virtualization tech that's without issue in that area.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited May 2022

    @woteti said: Proxmox is pretty intrusive (for lack of better term) that, without advanced tweaking, you'll end up dedicating the host just for proxmox.

    Nah, I use proxmox on powerful laptops I use for mining. The CPU is kind of idle as there is no efficient coin to mine with the CPU at current energy prices.
    I also use the Debian method, install debian, then the PVE packages, much better control like that. They also have desktops.
    I find proxmox overhead, if you are not using the UI or other stuffs and even then, to be pretty minimal, like 1% of a decent gen 12 Intel or a recent Ryzen, totally worth it, in my view. You can run full windows VM (i have 32 GB ram and I think it is not saturating the CPU), you can use up to 64 if you dont have heavy apps in the VMs, albeit 64 is probably a stretch even like that, but something in between, like 48 or so.
    Proxmox is way more efficient than VirtualBox and VMWare player and marginally more efficient than VMWare Workstation if you use all the features, such as linked clones and the like. It manages RAM and CPU well especially if you have multiple and similar VMs like me.

    Thanked by 1niceboy
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran

    @Maounique said: Proxmox is way more efficient than VirtualBox and VMWare player and marginally more efficient than VMWare Workstation if you use all the features,

    Not sure what you mean by "efficient" given they'd all be using hardware acceleration. Could you elaborate? Do you mean the app itself?

    If you want efficient then use LXC :)

  • wotetiwoteti Member

    @Maounique said:
    I also use the Debian method, install debian, then the PVE packages, much better control like that. They also have desktops.
    I find proxmox overhead, if you are not using the UI or other stuffs and even then, to be pretty minimal,

    Not using the UI + custom install is what I meant when I said advanced tweaking (again, for lack of better term). Not everyone wants to go through that.

    I didn't mean resource consumption at all since modern hardware is mostly beefy enough for the overhead not to matter. If one is really that resource constrained, then sure you have a point.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited May 2022

    @Daniel15 said: Not sure what you mean by "efficient" given they'd all be using hardware acceleration. Could you elaborate? Do you mean the app itself?

    If you want efficient then use LXC

    I mean memory management, CPU sharing, sure, in my usage scenario with similar VMs running similar apps, it could be different, running multiple VMs in virtual box is much slower and, while VMWare workstation comes close, player not really as i need the linked clone option. So Proxmox is free and efficient, I can use the laptop too as Debian workstation, there is no downside for using Proxmox compared to say, VMWare workstation. I used to be XCP fan and XenServer but it has no desktop option, lately the hardware is much more powerful and there is no difference between Xen-PV and KVM regarding performance, even if hardware would have not made that moot.

    LX* I use too, each has own perks and usage scenarios.

    Thanked by 1woteti
Sign In or Register to comment.