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Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux [advice needed for a Linux workstation at home]

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stj:
tor is not anonymous, governments control the nodes.

Whales:

--- Quote from: RoGeorge on January 27, 2019, 09:26:25 pm ---- needs VT-d/VT-x (hardware virtualization) capable processor

--- End quote ---

Sidenote: That's normal for all virt software in my experience (excluding very slow full-emulation modes).  Everything in the last 10 years *should* have this, although it's often turned off in the BIOS by default (for who-knows-why reason).

bd139:
Some of the ass end consumer SKUs don’t have VT-x for some reason. I bet they do but intel decided to play market segmentation games.

BradC:

--- Quote from: bd139 on January 29, 2019, 08:12:42 am ---Some of the ass end consumer SKUs don’t have VT-x for some reason. I bet they do but intel decided to play market segmentation games.

--- End quote ---

Of course they do. Same die, different fuses.

RoGeorge:
Indeed, some of the recent CPUs doesn't have virtualization.  As an example, my former i3 doesn't have it: https://ark.intel.com/products/77488/Intel-Core-i3-4160-Processor-3M-Cache-3-60-GHz- That i3 is not so old, it was launched in 2014 and discontinued in 2017.  During the same period of time, and with the same socket, its biggest brother i7 have VT-d/VT-x capabilities.

A small introduction to virtualization

It is all about the idea of running many OSs (Operating Systems, e.g. Windows or Linux or BSD) on the same computer, and they can all run simultaneously.  This can be done in many ways.

* 1.  The simplest way is to have a disk for each OS, and each time the computer boots, you can choose if you want Windows 10 or Ubuntu or whatever.  This is not virtualization.  It does not run both in the same time.  This is a bare metal install, or Type 0, like any ordinary Windows 10 or Ubuntu or MacOS install.
* 2.  Once the computer is up and running the preferred OS from point 1., we can still running some other OS to run on top.  For that, one can install a program called VirtualBox, or VMWare (both are free for home use).  These programs can create a whole new virtual machine, with everything from BIOS, to disks and processors.  These is virtualization.  It is known as Type 2 virtualization.  Note that Type 2 is built on top of an existing and running OS we choose at point 1.
* 3.  If we want to get rid of the OS loaded at point 1., and run virtual machines without Windows/Ubuntu + VirtualBox/VMWare, then we will call this a Type 1 virtualization.  To run many OSs at once, obviously we need some kind of arbiter between the many OSs, an arbiter capable keep the many OSs separated and without conflicts between each other.  This "arbiter" is called a Hypervisor.  The Hypervisor itself is installed on bare metal, sometimes the hypervisor it is referred as dom0.  The hypervisor is usually not a full OS, like Windows 10 or Ubuntu.  One can think about a hypervisor as a small OS, having only very basic functionality, without web browser or things like this (if one insists, one can have a dom0 with web browser, but we let this aside for a while).  Examples of hypervisors are ProxMox or Xen.  ProxMox is based on KVM, but these details are just adding confusion.  For now, we will let the details aside.
* 4.  All the above examples:
* Type 0, or no virtualization == choosing between Windows and linux at boot time, only one at a time, each installed bare metal
* Type 2 virtualization == multiple Windowses/Linuxes running simultaneously inside a VirtualBox/VMWare which was installed on top of a bare metal Windows/Ubuntu
* Type 1 virtualization == multiple Windowses/Linuxes running simultaneously inside a Xen/ProxMox/KVM hyperviser
have the same purpose, which is to run various OSs on the same machine, without these OSs interfere or conflict with each other.To complicate things even more, sometimes we don't need/want to have another full OS running.  Sometimes we need just a particular program to be isolated and self-contained.  For this, there is another concept called containerization, as an example Docker containers and snap installs.
To recap, 1. is a normal install, 2. and 3. allows us to run Virtual Machines (VM), and 4. is used to isolate and contain only programs, not full machines.  The details about how on Earth one can e.g. reboot a Windows VM, and see the BIOS screen, while other Windowses and Linuxes are running just fine on the same computer, are very interesting, but quite complicated.  Won't go into details for now.

The next video will try to roughly explain how virtualization works.  It's the most intuitive and non technical explanation I've seen so far.  Worth a look from those new to virtualization.
...
Aaaand I can not find that video anymore, bummer!  :palm:
 ;D

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