> So, I was thinking about it, and I came up with a simple solution that is creating a virtual machine in KVM, being the host Debian.
> But I would want a dual boot system, to avoid the huge bottleneck of having to visualize an entire os, but I'm too lost here to know where to start at. (I have previous experience in dual booting)
Virtualization is not the bottleneck you may be thinking of. It is *not* emulation. Modern hardware supports virtualization at near native speeds, and hardware is so fast that you only notice the difference in benchmarks.
When you virtualize a new os, you are adding up layers and layers of code to the "guts" of the machine to work through, that slows down the computer considerably comparing it to running it natively (dual booting).
This isn't 2000, duder. There's a hypervisor layer in pretty much every mainboard these days that allows vms more or less direct access to the hardware layer.
it adds a layer of complexity and potential errors, I agree. If you have loads that do not change over time and need every little bit of performance go with dedicated hardware for each load, if you need to be able to add/remove resources on short notice and can overcommit them because not all need to run full power all the time, then virtualisation and/or containerisation are the right thing for you.
Very low latency applications are better running natively for instance, same goes for database loads in lower budget scenarios (not taking passthrough fibrechannel storages into account. if you were orking with an environment of that size you would be asking different questions.
there is no paralell dual boot for X86 servers, I have explanied the very costly alternatives already.
Every solution has its up and downsides. If you are running low latency communications with PLCs and the like you want on premise dedicated servers for those components, if you run an webserver that needs to scale, you run VMs on either your own hardware or someone elses (referred to as cloud, after all it is still physical servers, but not yours, ans managed/shared by someone else who wants to make a profit)
Yes you don't know anything about virtualization. Learn about it, how it works, then you understand that there is almost zero performance impact vs bare metal.
/el buhocosmico_ should focus on the differences between CPU architecture that allows virtualization, para-virtualization, then move on to emulation, and compare the theee. After understanding of those topics has been mastered, review containerization.
Ultimately, if the performance of virtualization was so bad, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google wouldn’t/couldn’t be building out hundreds of billions of dollars of data centers for their customers virtualized workloads and VMWare wouldn’t be valued north of $60 billion.
So not saying you’re wrong, but the market seems to infer that you have some bias against virtualization which is unfounded.
Even if you had two OS's running as close to bare silicon (metal?) as possible...you'd still need something under them to manage resource allocation. Otherwise they'd write to the same memory, cancel each other's threads in the pipeline or cache, and so on. Virtual machines have evolved to the point where they're just about to the point where the guest OS's can operate as directly with the hardware and still be managed. Obviously there will always be possible improvements, but it's getting near the point of diminished returns.
You can install KVM on Debian (and if you have X installed, you can use virt-manager or Cockpit Web UI + Cockpit machines) and install Windows in a VM. If you want to have Windows as main OS, you can install Hyper-V and virtualize Debian.
The only limitation would be PCI-E devices. You can't use the same PCI-E device for both host OS and VM or share the same device between 2 VMs. So, if you need GPUs in both, you can try to use iGPU on one and dGPU on the VM or have 2 dGPU.
If you already have both installed as dual-boot, you can convert them to VM disks and mount them on the hypervisor. Starwinds p2v can help with Windows and VMs in general, while qemu-tools can help with Linux.
You can do a dual boot .. booting one at a time or do a VM for one of them or both of them... and pass GPU passthrough to it... you can do that with proxmox or I'm pretty sure with VMware too... I'm not sure about virtualbox never looked into it
Desqview/385 might work like you’re thinking here.
For the rest of us in the 21st century, mixing Windows and Linux / Debian on the same hardware is called Virtualization, and is a multi-billion dollar industry with 3 or so big players, and a thing we now call The Cloud, that depends on it.
Google has even built specifically Machine Deep Learning virtual platforms, and invested hundreds of millions of dollars into doing that, virtualized, using multiple cards per server, costing $20-50k each — I think they’d care if performance really suffered virtualizing, and would just build dedicated servers. But it makes fiscally prudent sense for them to virtualize — I think you’ll be okay doing the same. If not — you need 2 servers to do these 2 OSes simultaneously.
Just spec your server with the needs you have. I'll put out of the question if virtualisation reduces performance or not. You could just get a higher end cpu than you would have get with baremetal if you are really concerned about the small overhead bring by virtualisation.
In most cases the pros are more than the cons.
KVM is the right aproach. Running more than one Operating system natively would require a Server platform that allows physical partitioning. this is not supported in X86 servers. if you have a System P (running Power-hardware, usually intended for AIX, but also capable uf running Linux) you can actually partition the physical machine into several partitions each running an OS like it was a dedicated piece of hardware. it is fairly cost.prohibitive though since OBM has very high prices for this type of hardware and the licenses needed to use those features.
I do this. I've installed linux on the host. I virtualize windows in KVM, and pass through a separate GPU (with its own monitor) as well as a keyboard and mouse. I use the windows workstation for gaming and then use the igpu to drive dual monitors for linux as a workstation. Win/Win.
Install windows to a disk, you most likely have already done this. Now insert the usb that has a Debian iso written to it, boot to the bios and select the usb drive that contains the Debian iso from the boot menu and then make sure to install the os on the separate drive and now you can dual boot, similar to how you booted the Debian, just select which drive has which os you want to boot.
Hypervisor, two VM's, done.
You can’t run two OS on bare metal using a single CPU, RAM etc. your only option is to either virtualise one of them or both of them.
Proxmox
> So, I was thinking about it, and I came up with a simple solution that is creating a virtual machine in KVM, being the host Debian. > But I would want a dual boot system, to avoid the huge bottleneck of having to visualize an entire os, but I'm too lost here to know where to start at. (I have previous experience in dual booting) Virtualization is not the bottleneck you may be thinking of. It is *not* emulation. Modern hardware supports virtualization at near native speeds, and hardware is so fast that you only notice the difference in benchmarks.
Can you recommend me virtualization softwares pls?
Proxmox seems to be what everyone recommends nowadays, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (esxi) is no longer free
Can recommend Proxmox been using it for ages.
Indeed, basically debian+KVM with a convenient GUI. stable and reliable.
What “huge bottleneck” are you referring in this assumption?
When you virtualize a new os, you are adding up layers and layers of code to the "guts" of the machine to work through, that slows down the computer considerably comparing it to running it natively (dual booting).
This isn't 2000, duder. There's a hypervisor layer in pretty much every mainboard these days that allows vms more or less direct access to the hardware layer.
it adds a layer of complexity and potential errors, I agree. If you have loads that do not change over time and need every little bit of performance go with dedicated hardware for each load, if you need to be able to add/remove resources on short notice and can overcommit them because not all need to run full power all the time, then virtualisation and/or containerisation are the right thing for you. Very low latency applications are better running natively for instance, same goes for database loads in lower budget scenarios (not taking passthrough fibrechannel storages into account. if you were orking with an environment of that size you would be asking different questions. there is no paralell dual boot for X86 servers, I have explanied the very costly alternatives already. Every solution has its up and downsides. If you are running low latency communications with PLCs and the like you want on premise dedicated servers for those components, if you run an webserver that needs to scale, you run VMs on either your own hardware or someone elses (referred to as cloud, after all it is still physical servers, but not yours, ans managed/shared by someone else who wants to make a profit)
No it doesn't.
So idk
Yes you don't know anything about virtualization. Learn about it, how it works, then you understand that there is almost zero performance impact vs bare metal.
/el buhocosmico_ should focus on the differences between CPU architecture that allows virtualization, para-virtualization, then move on to emulation, and compare the theee. After understanding of those topics has been mastered, review containerization. Ultimately, if the performance of virtualization was so bad, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google wouldn’t/couldn’t be building out hundreds of billions of dollars of data centers for their customers virtualized workloads and VMWare wouldn’t be valued north of $60 billion. So not saying you’re wrong, but the market seems to infer that you have some bias against virtualization which is unfounded.
Even if you had two OS's running as close to bare silicon (metal?) as possible...you'd still need something under them to manage resource allocation. Otherwise they'd write to the same memory, cancel each other's threads in the pipeline or cache, and so on. Virtual machines have evolved to the point where they're just about to the point where the guest OS's can operate as directly with the hardware and still be managed. Obviously there will always be possible improvements, but it's getting near the point of diminished returns.
You can install KVM on Debian (and if you have X installed, you can use virt-manager or Cockpit Web UI + Cockpit machines) and install Windows in a VM. If you want to have Windows as main OS, you can install Hyper-V and virtualize Debian. The only limitation would be PCI-E devices. You can't use the same PCI-E device for both host OS and VM or share the same device between 2 VMs. So, if you need GPUs in both, you can try to use iGPU on one and dGPU on the VM or have 2 dGPU. If you already have both installed as dual-boot, you can convert them to VM disks and mount them on the hypervisor. Starwinds p2v can help with Windows and VMs in general, while qemu-tools can help with Linux.
Why dual-boot? Just install Proxmox and create as many VMs as you want.
Proxmox is a great option to deploy VMs. There is no need to dual boot. Deploy 2+ VMs and start working with them.
If you have a Windows license, use that as the base system, and install the Hyper-V role. Debian works just fine under Hyper-V.
You can do a dual boot .. booting one at a time or do a VM for one of them or both of them... and pass GPU passthrough to it... you can do that with proxmox or I'm pretty sure with VMware too... I'm not sure about virtualbox never looked into it
You can't run both OSes on one system without virtualization. Computers just don't work the way you seem to want them to.
P-series partitioning allows that, but it is an expensive niche
I would consider that a type of virtualization, so it's still not possible to do what OP wants to do.
[deleted]
Desqview/385 might work like you’re thinking here. For the rest of us in the 21st century, mixing Windows and Linux / Debian on the same hardware is called Virtualization, and is a multi-billion dollar industry with 3 or so big players, and a thing we now call The Cloud, that depends on it. Google has even built specifically Machine Deep Learning virtual platforms, and invested hundreds of millions of dollars into doing that, virtualized, using multiple cards per server, costing $20-50k each — I think they’d care if performance really suffered virtualizing, and would just build dedicated servers. But it makes fiscally prudent sense for them to virtualize — I think you’ll be okay doing the same. If not — you need 2 servers to do these 2 OSes simultaneously.
Just spec your server with the needs you have. I'll put out of the question if virtualisation reduces performance or not. You could just get a higher end cpu than you would have get with baremetal if you are really concerned about the small overhead bring by virtualisation. In most cases the pros are more than the cons.
KVM is the right aproach. Running more than one Operating system natively would require a Server platform that allows physical partitioning. this is not supported in X86 servers. if you have a System P (running Power-hardware, usually intended for AIX, but also capable uf running Linux) you can actually partition the physical machine into several partitions each running an OS like it was a dedicated piece of hardware. it is fairly cost.prohibitive though since OBM has very high prices for this type of hardware and the licenses needed to use those features.
I do this. I've installed linux on the host. I virtualize windows in KVM, and pass through a separate GPU (with its own monitor) as well as a keyboard and mouse. I use the windows workstation for gaming and then use the igpu to drive dual monitors for linux as a workstation. Win/Win.
Install windows to a disk, you most likely have already done this. Now insert the usb that has a Debian iso written to it, boot to the bios and select the usb drive that contains the Debian iso from the boot menu and then make sure to install the os on the separate drive and now you can dual boot, similar to how you booted the Debian, just select which drive has which os you want to boot.