TLDR; tell me if this is a waste of time before I spend forever tinkering on something that will always be janky

I want to run multiple OSs on one machine including Linux, Windows, and maybe OSX from a host with multiple GPUs + igpu. I know there are multiple solutions but I’m looking for advice, opinions and experience. I know I can google how-to but is this worh pursuing?

I currently dual boot Bazzite and Ubuntu, for gaming and develoent respectively. I love Bazzite ease of updates and Ubuntu is where it’s at for testing and building frontier AI/ML tools.

What if I kept my computer running a thin hypervisor 24/7 and switched VMs based on my working context? I could pass through hardware as needed.

Proxmox? XCP-NG? Debian + QEMU? Anyone living with these as their computing machines (not homelabs/server hosts)?

This is inspired by Chris Tidus’s (YouTube) setup on arch but 1) i don’t know arch 2) I have a fairly beefy i7 265k 192gb build, but he’s on an enterprise xenon ddr5 build so in a differenrent power class 3) I have a heterogenous mix of graphics cards I’m hoping to pass though depending on workload

Use cases:

  • Bazzite + 1 gpu for gaming
  • Ubuntu + 1 or more GPUs for work
  • Windows + 0 or more GPU Music Production paid vstis and kernel-level anti cheat games (GTAV, etc)
  • OSX? Lightroom? GPU?

Edit: Thank you all for your thoughts and contributions

Edit: what I’ve learned

  • this is viable but might be a pain
  • a Windows VM for getting around anti-cheat in vames defeats the purpose. I’d need a dual boot for that use case
  • hyperV is a no. Qubes Qemu libvirt, yes
  • may want to just put everything on sparate disks and boot / VM into them as needed

Edit: distrobox/docker works great but doesn’t fit all my needs because I can’t install kernel-level modules in them (AFAIK)

  • Zangoose@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    If you are fine with having things on the same OS, look into distrobox. It would let you set up an Ubuntu environment/container on top of your Bazzite install. You could also use something like OSX-KVM for MacOS with GPU passthrough (assuming you use a compatible GPU) which would simplify your setup greatly. That way you could technically have all 3 environments on one OS with one set of hardware but now the only thing being virtualized is MacOS.

    (You could also dual-boot with MacOS if you wanted and it would be slightly faster than a VM but also more of a headache to setup)

    Edit: Missed that you mentioned Windows but the setup for that would be pretty much the exact same as MacOS except getting GPU passthrough to work on Windows is easier (again, same limitations as MacOS though, and games with anticheats would be able to tell that Windows is in a VM).

    • afk_strats@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      The OSX idea is very much an edge case for me. I’ve heard of it but not something I know much about.