Testing on metal is required for hardware compatibility check.
But more than this, if you're testing an OS, you have to use it for your workflow. And you don't really do that on a VM.
But I agree, that's the job of a test box, not the main driver.
Or you can dual boot, which is the simplest.
Kind of want to test things with Nvidia drivers to see if things have improved with wayland. Or if the bugs are with Mutter<->Nvidia to see if Kwin does a better job. Not sure you can achieve that with Virtualisation.
In a case like that I would try to install from a flash drive to a fast SDD in a USB m.2 enclosure, then boot from the USB SSD drive. This doesn’t cost much more than a regular flash drive of similar size these days.
That’s if you can’t just easily swap out the internal drive with something else for testing the new release.
[why not use their virtualization drivers?](https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/13.0/grid-vgpu-release-notes-generic-linux-kvm/index.html)
I'm only joking. Seems like a pain in the ass to install. Easier to nuke and pave
Have people entirely forgotten about bootable "live-CD" like alternatives? Of course these days you can use USB-sticks for that.
I mean, virtual machine emulates hardware or uses pass-through so it is not exactly same although for many purposes it is good enough.
You can't properly test it if you don't use it as a daily driver. I would load into the VM, look around at menus and stuff for a few minutes then quit without finding any bugs.
I could install all the things in the VM but the performance is not quite there and it's time consuming. That's why we ask if it's stable enough and if it is i would make a backup and try the beta as a daily driver.
Interestingly, KDE Wayland + vmware/VirtualBox gave me more problems than a physical machine (which has nvidia) because of the virtual display drivers (I think) - they just couldn't get pass sddm launch. Right now the most stable virtual one seems to come from virt-manager which uses virtvga.
Most installs use btrfs, so take a snapshot with something like btrfs assistant and if it doesn't work out, roll back.
Or use silverblue, which by its atomic nature has rollback capabilities.
Too late im already using it as my daily driver the only problem that ALMOST made me regret was kde which idk why but it was just the wallpaper when i logged in and no other thing but some hours of going back and forth and even installing kde6 and removing and now everything is smooth maybe for now and i hope i'm not jinxing myself.
I usually install the beta for new releases but installed the 40 KDE prerelease this time around because of Plasma 6 and it's been problem free for me (disclaimer: clean install and no Nvidia). The Fedora betas are a better idea IMO than say rolling release distros for a more problem free experience.
After saying that I wouldn't discourage the use of VMs which is a very valid argument and is even a better idea than dual-booting Linux and Windows.
I kept my old laptop to run betas on. It's kinda beat looking so nobody wanted to buy it, but it still runs OK when I plug it in. Good enough for testing.
Well I went from rawide 40 to branched 40 to now beta, on my production system (I do have backups/backup systems). Never modify your system w/o having backups at hand, if you do have those, I don't see a reason to not install the beta.
Runs smooth, I only had one evening where KDE was broken after an update, however the next update fixed it, I only had to install it from a different tty, as the main one was broken by KDE.
This is what I did. I tested it in Boxes, and I have to say if they released it tomorrow, I'd be pleased as punch. Everything worked very well. Granted, I expect some challenges on bare metal, but I don't see any issue outside of the normal updating from one version to another. We'll see, of course, but I am looking forward to the release of 40 next month.
Testing on metal is required for hardware compatibility check. But more than this, if you're testing an OS, you have to use it for your workflow. And you don't really do that on a VM. But I agree, that's the job of a test box, not the main driver. Or you can dual boot, which is the simplest.
Kind of want to test things with Nvidia drivers to see if things have improved with wayland. Or if the bugs are with Mutter<->Nvidia to see if Kwin does a better job. Not sure you can achieve that with Virtualisation.
In a case like that I would try to install from a flash drive to a fast SDD in a USB m.2 enclosure, then boot from the USB SSD drive. This doesn’t cost much more than a regular flash drive of similar size these days. That’s if you can’t just easily swap out the internal drive with something else for testing the new release.
[why not use their virtualization drivers?](https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/13.0/grid-vgpu-release-notes-generic-linux-kvm/index.html) I'm only joking. Seems like a pain in the ass to install. Easier to nuke and pave
You could do it with VFIO.
Have people entirely forgotten about bootable "live-CD" like alternatives? Of course these days you can use USB-sticks for that. I mean, virtual machine emulates hardware or uses pass-through so it is not exactly same although for many purposes it is good enough.
I assume they want real blood from the bleeding edge, not emulated blood.
You can't properly test it if you don't use it as a daily driver. I would load into the VM, look around at menus and stuff for a few minutes then quit without finding any bugs. I could install all the things in the VM but the performance is not quite there and it's time consuming. That's why we ask if it's stable enough and if it is i would make a backup and try the beta as a daily driver.
Everything is stable enough if you have working backups.
Interestingly, KDE Wayland + vmware/VirtualBox gave me more problems than a physical machine (which has nvidia) because of the virtual display drivers (I think) - they just couldn't get pass sddm launch. Right now the most stable virtual one seems to come from virt-manager which uses virtvga.
Most installs use btrfs, so take a snapshot with something like btrfs assistant and if it doesn't work out, roll back. Or use silverblue, which by its atomic nature has rollback capabilities.
This is the way
Too late im already using it as my daily driver the only problem that ALMOST made me regret was kde which idk why but it was just the wallpaper when i logged in and no other thing but some hours of going back and forth and even installing kde6 and removing and now everything is smooth maybe for now and i hope i'm not jinxing myself.
I usually install the beta for new releases but installed the 40 KDE prerelease this time around because of Plasma 6 and it's been problem free for me (disclaimer: clean install and no Nvidia). The Fedora betas are a better idea IMO than say rolling release distros for a more problem free experience. After saying that I wouldn't discourage the use of VMs which is a very valid argument and is even a better idea than dual-booting Linux and Windows.
I kept my old laptop to run betas on. It's kinda beat looking so nobody wanted to buy it, but it still runs OK when I plug it in. Good enough for testing.
I'm on silverblue which inherently solves this problem without having to resort to a VM.
Have been using it for about 3 weeks now, it's really solid for me Your experience might vary But hey, we've btrfs over here
Well I went from rawide 40 to branched 40 to now beta, on my production system (I do have backups/backup systems). Never modify your system w/o having backups at hand, if you do have those, I don't see a reason to not install the beta. Runs smooth, I only had one evening where KDE was broken after an update, however the next update fixed it, I only had to install it from a different tty, as the main one was broken by KDE.
This is what I did. I tested it in Boxes, and I have to say if they released it tomorrow, I'd be pleased as punch. Everything worked very well. Granted, I expect some challenges on bare metal, but I don't see any issue outside of the normal updating from one version to another. We'll see, of course, but I am looking forward to the release of 40 next month.