[conspire] (forw) Re: (forw) Re: VirtualBox

[Dana Goyette]

Qemu can do VMDK files, too.  I'd recommend using virt-manager -- it's far more convenient than writing a whole raw qemu command line.
You should be able to boot, say, an Ubuntu live image (shouldn't even need persistence), and install virt-manager there.

Assuming you have the vmdk file somewhere writable, you should be able to create a VM using that existing VMDK file.  I don't recall off-hand if the booted-from USB flash drive is mounted writable, so you may want to have it on a second flash drive.

Some issues to watch out for (these apply to both Qemu and Virtualbox):

* If the converted OS was using UEFI, you should set the VM to use UEFI.  If using Qemu, you may have to install the "ovmf" package separately.
* If the installed Windows is using an OEM license (certificate embedded in the firmware), it likely won't be possible to activate it in the VM.
* If the installed Windows is using a retail license, it might activate successfully, but will eat up one of the limited number of changed-hardware activations; you'll want to back up the temporary VM to preserve the virtual hardware environment.
* To back up a VirtualBox VM, you can back up the directory.  Example: ~/VirtualBox VMs/MyVM
* To back up a libvirt VM, use "virsh dumpxml MyVM > MyVM.xml", and back up the XML file somewhere.  You can restore it via "virsh define MyVM.xml"

> On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:26 PM, Paul Zander <paulz at ieee.org> wrote:
> 
>> KVM's not hard to use.  You use -hda to give is a filename for a hard
> 
>> drive and -cdrom to give it an iso file and -boot d to tell it to boot
>> from the iso for your install, and omit those two arguments
>> thereafter. 
> 
> 
> Tony, 
> 
> You missed all the past discussion that there is no .iso.  
> 
> Just a .vmdk file created from the installed windows.
> There is good reason to expect that Virtual box will work with vmdk files.
> Possibly KVM will also work, but ...
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tony Godshall <togo at of.net>
> To: Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us>
> Cc: conspire <conspire at linuxmafia.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 26, 2016 9:29 AM
> Subject: Re: [conspire] (forw) Re: (forw) Re: VirtualBox
> 
> Hard drives are cheap and you can get good improvements in capacity
> and performance by swapping hard drives.
> 
> And there's value in keeping the old one as a backup, like DG says.
> 
> I like SSHDs- they don't cost much more than pure spinning media and
> they give you a lot of the performance boost of SSDs.
> 
> GNOME Boxes?  Hmmm...
> 
> "Boxes is a GNOME application in Fedora that is used to create,
> manage, and run virtual machines. It was designed with simplicity and
> ease of use in mind, building upon the harder to use qemu-based
> virt-manager.Feb 2, 2015"
> 
> KVM's not hard to use.  You use -hda to give is a filename for a hard
> drive and -cdrom to give it an iso file and -boot d to tell it to boot
> from the iso for your install, and omit those two arguments
> thereafter.  And you can also use other simple arguments to reserve it
> more memory or have it be VNC-connectable or whatever.  You do need a
> CPU with virtualization capability (and enabled in your BIOS), since
> KVM doesn't degrade to a poorly performing mode if it can't modprobe
> kvm.
> # man kvm
> # man kvm-qemu
> 
> I'm not sure super easy to use point and click is good in beneficial
> for things like this.  You lose scriptability.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 5:44 PM, Daniel Gimpelevich
> <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>> On Fri, 2016-09-23 at 22:16 +0000, Paul Zander wrote:
>>> 1) back up all of the crazy partitions that Dell created.  (Remind me
>>> to think twice about another Dell computer even if the price is marked
>>> down.)
>> 
>> Screw all that and just swap the hard disk. That way, you keep the
>> original as a backup.
>> 
>> If you want to run Windows under KVM, I repeat from my message on
>> Friday: Take a serious look at GNOME Boxes.
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Best Regards.
> This is unedited.
> This message came out of me
> via a suboptimal keyboard.
> 
> 
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