Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#2Cool stuff.
Actually did something similar back in 2000. We built a dual-processor Pentium II machine and installed Win2k and Redhat (IIRC), then with vmware and a bit of hacking we were able to make each one VM bootable inside the other. Just for the sake of it really. Fun :)
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#3Another way to make use of 3D graphics in Windows, from Linux seems to be booting Windows VM in xen, and passing through a spare GPU to Windows. I'm aching to try this out as I am frustrated working with SolidWorks in VirtualBox VM and I have finally upgraded my desktop PC with hardware which should in theory support this.
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#4Did something similar with an Ubuntu guest a few years back. Fun times.
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#5I remember doing something similar to diagnose a boot problem a while ago. It was much quicker mounting the partition on a live cd, changing something, unmounting and trying to boot in vbox, then repeating, than it would have been to use any other method, if nothing else because it sidestepped repeatedly waiting for my the slow real mobos bios to post
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#6before i switched back from linux to mac i took out my ssd and put it in a thunderbolt case. i can now boot it directly and everything works perfectly or i use virtualbox. sadly the permissions are a bit questionable(see below).
Also, one caveat is that the virtualbox vm write tops out somewhere around 100-120 mbyte/s (idr), while the boot from linux gives me 360.
sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~myuser/Library/VirtualBox/VDI/raw-linux.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk1
sudo chmod 666 /dev/disk1*Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#7I had the horrifying experience of doing this with Windows Vista. It was at the point where XP's Hardware Abstraction Layer had been depreciated, but there wasn't any documentation for what to use instead. It was really messy. Every time I booted in a VM it thought it was an unlicensed copy, but when I booted from the physical machine it didn't see any problems. I still have no idea what caused that.
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#8I'm puzzled about how this would help with 3D graphics. Wouldn't Windows still be running the same way in a VM, regardless of where its files are located?
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#9I'm puzzled about how this would help with 3D graphics. Wouldn't Windows still be running the same way in a VM, regardless of where its files are located?
The idea's that you can boot into "native" Windows when you need to do stuff with 3D graphics, but boot into virtualized Windows when you don't. This way, you can use the same install for both purposes, allowing you to save storage space and avoid having two different Windows installs that you have to setup and maintain.
Re: Use a real Windows 7 partition in Virtualbox / KVM / VMware Player under Linux
#10I'm puzzled about how this would help with 3D graphics. Wouldn't Windows still be running the same way in a VM, regardless of where its files are located?
The idea's that you can boot into "native" Windows when you need to do stuff with 3D graphics, but boot into virtualized Windows when you don't. This way, you can use the same install for both purposes, allowing you to save storage space and avoid having two different Windows installs that you have to setup and maintain.
Xen has native GPU passthrough, though I've never tried it with a non-vm partition (it is possible to do so though).