Seeking recommendation: KVM vs Virtualbox
I have an old Win XP (32 bit) instance loaded with dozens of games, that I would like to take traveling. I would like to run it in a VM. The host will be a laptop running 64 bit debian i3 core. I would really like to just turn the XP NTFS partition into an image file which I can run on the VM. This would save me hundreds of hours of reinstalling stuff. The best bet for this seems to be using virtualbox, and there are (pretty tricky) howtos for it. I do not think you can do this at all with KVM. Has anyone ever managed something like this before? Let me learn from your pain! PS: Another alternative is to install the higher performing KVM to install a fresh XP instance and use a commercial PC program mover to copy the games from the PC XP to the instance, via the network. There are tools such as PcMover that claim to do this. Has anyone ever done this before? Thanks -- Michael Galea
I would think any VM will boot off an harddisk image file. I mean, when you install OS on to a VM, that's what you're doing. Taking an image of the harddisk would be sensible, in any case. On 11/3/21 9:49 PM, Michael Galea via talk wrote:
I have an old Win XP (32 bit) instance loaded with dozens of games, that I would like to take traveling. I would like to run it in a VM. The host will be a laptop running 64 bit debian i3 core.
I would really like to just turn the XP NTFS partition into an image file which I can run on the VM. This would save me hundreds of hours of reinstalling stuff. The best bet for this seems to be using virtualbox, and there are (pretty tricky) howtos for it. I do not think you can do this at all with KVM.
Has anyone ever managed something like this before? Let me learn from your pain!
PS: Another alternative is to install the higher performing KVM to install a fresh XP instance and use a commercial PC program mover to copy the games from the PC XP to the instance, via the network. There are tools such as PcMover that claim to do this. Has anyone ever done this before?
Thanks
As a general rule a hard disk image can be made to boot under both KVM and VB or VMware. The first problem you may have migrating is the fact that the disk controllers may not be compatible between the physical system and the VM engine you pick. Usually this can be solved by pre-installing a compatible windows disk-controller before you make the image to try and boot. There are also physical-to-virtual tools from both VB and KVM(virt-p2v) that will supposedly create a bootable VM image from a physical Windows system. I have never been in a position where they were a usable solution because they require physical access to the server and most times I was repairing systems in nowhereland. I have not yet had problems with video drivers but it is possible that if you have a really unusual video card/interface that you may need to install new video drivers. Not sure about just taking the NTFS partition. You will likely need to take the boot partition and first few sectors of the disk with its geometry. VirtualBox is slicker than KVM(libvirt) but KVM is friendlier if you want to build out a bunch of servers and like more programmatic control. VirtualBox also had( Been a while since I tried this ) better USB drivers and tools for sharing data between your linux system and the Windows VM. I would suggest you try the P-to-V tools first and see how well they work before chasing down the rabbit hole of installing drivers and doing image copies. A little "duckduckgo-ing" and. VB does not support moving physical to virtual... https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows but does give instructions. here are a couple of other links. https://www.linux.org/threads/physical-to-virtual-p2v-using-virtualbox.10928... https://www.joe0.com/2017/09/27/how-to-convert-physical-windows-computer-to-... virt-p2v is the KVM/libvirt tool https://libguestfs.org/virt-p2v.1.html On 2021-11-03 21:49, Michael Galea via talk wrote:
I have an old Win XP (32 bit) instance loaded with dozens of games, that I would like to take traveling. I would like to run it in a VM. The host will be a laptop running 64 bit debian i3 core.
I would really like to just turn the XP NTFS partition into an image file which I can run on the VM. This would save me hundreds of hours of reinstalling stuff. The best bet for this seems to be using virtualbox, and there are (pretty tricky) howtos for it. I do not think you can do this at all with KVM.
Has anyone ever managed something like this before? Let me learn from your pain!
PS: Another alternative is to install the higher performing KVM to install a fresh XP instance and use a commercial PC program mover to copy the games from the PC XP to the instance, via the network. There are tools such as PcMover that claim to do this. Has anyone ever done this before?
Thanks
-- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
I took Alvin's advice and tried the p to v toolsets for both virtualbox and KVM. The resultant VirtualBox image booted but I could never get it to load the system. KVM, on the other hand, cleanly ran the XP image. In the end I had games on the XP VM that: 1) were installed from CD, 2) were installed from CD (but used Direct X), 3) were installed from game managers like steam and big fish. Type 3) games wouldn't play (the game manager required a new hardware key). Type 2 games wouldn't play as QXL, redhat's VGA driver implementation doesn't support Direct X. And type 1) games are easy enough to reinstall from scratch. As a result of the research, I learned how to make a clean XP install on KVM and I'll be using that. On 2021-11-04 7:39 a.m., Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
As a general rule a hard disk image can be made to boot under both KVM and VB or VMware.
The first problem you may have migrating is the fact that the disk controllers may not be compatible between the physical system and the VM engine you pick. Usually this can be solved by pre-installing a compatible windows disk-controller before you make the image to try and boot. There are also physical-to-virtual tools from both VB and KVM(virt-p2v) that will supposedly create a bootable VM image from a physical Windows system. I have never been in a position where they were a usable solution because they require physical access to the server and most times I was repairing systems in nowhereland.
I have not yet had problems with video drivers but it is possible that if you have a really unusual video card/interface that you may need to install new video drivers.
Not sure about just taking the NTFS partition. You will likely need to take the boot partition and first few sectors of the disk with its geometry.
VirtualBox is slicker than KVM(libvirt) but KVM is friendlier if you want to build out a bunch of servers and like more programmatic control. VirtualBox also had( Been a while since I tried this ) better USB drivers and tools for sharing data between your linux system and the Windows VM.
I would suggest you try the P-to-V tools first and see how well they work before chasing down the rabbit hole of installing drivers and doing image copies.
A little "duckduckgo-ing" and. VB does not support moving physical to virtual... https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows but does give instructions. here are a couple of other links. https://www.linux.org/threads/physical-to-virtual-p2v-using-virtualbox.10928...
https://www.joe0.com/2017/09/27/how-to-convert-physical-windows-computer-to-...
virt-p2v is the KVM/libvirt tool https://libguestfs.org/virt-p2v.1.html
On 2021-11-03 21:49, Michael Galea via talk wrote:
I have an old Win XP (32 bit) instance loaded with dozens of games, that I would like to take traveling. I would like to run it in a VM. The host will be a laptop running 64 bit debian i3 core.
I would really like to just turn the XP NTFS partition into an image file which I can run on the VM. This would save me hundreds of hours of reinstalling stuff. The best bet for this seems to be using virtualbox, and there are (pretty tricky) howtos for it. I do not think you can do this at all with KVM.
Has anyone ever managed something like this before? Let me learn from your pain!
PS: Another alternative is to install the higher performing KVM to install a fresh XP instance and use a commercial PC program mover to copy the games from the PC XP to the instance, via the network. There are tools such as PcMover that claim to do this. Has anyone ever done this before?
Thanks
-- Michael Galea
participants (3)
-
Alvin Starr -
Michael Galea -
William Park