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)

  • DigitalDilemma@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    I work four days a week on a remote windows vm. It has everything I need, and I remote from /that/ onto whatever other vm I might need. I connect over a vpn using, well, anything. As you’ve pointed out, the local machine doesn’t need much in the way of specs, although in my case I have three monitors - all given over to the remote, and it’s a clean way to separate work’s environment and network from my own and it’s a very common work pattern. The hypervisor there is vmware, but that doesn’t matter.

    But… Gaming is a different. There is latency over the conn, and audio/graphic lag would make FPS and gpu-heavy games particularly poor. I don’t know of a way to totally overcome that, although game-streaming services exist, so presumably it is possible.

    • afk_strats@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I work on remote and local machines and I feel comfortable on both. For this project, I have the advantage of all of my hardware being in my house. Latency wouldn’t be an issue over my wired network. Sunshine would allow me to game locally for sure.