Hyper-V - I'm more and more impressed with it

Hi folks
I decided to create an OpenSUSE VM on Hyper-V with absolutely everything enabled and using KDE as the desktop -- just to test how Hyper-V is working to create Linux VM's these days.

It just worked seamlessly - even Networking

It's a huge improvement on a few years ago.

Host OS : (and I'm running this as a Windows2Go from an external Nvme->USB device on a not too powerful laptop). Performance is fine, no mouse / keyboard issues with the VM.




The VM






(Note typical Linux doesn't need that size -- but if I'm testing why not Stress test).

Who needs VMware etc -- my only complaint is dynamic USB re-direction -- it's still a bit of a pain to have to install / attach all devices at VM boot -- but for once Well done Ms.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks
I decided to create an OpenSUSE VM on Hyper-V with absolutely everything enabled and using KDE as the desktop -- just to test how Hyper-V is working to create Linux VM's these days.

It just worked seamlessly - even Networking

It's a huge improvement on a few years ago.

Host OS : (and I'm running this as a Windows2Go from an external Nvme->USB device on a not too powerful laptop). Performance is fine, no mouse / keyboard issues with the VM.

View attachment 102493


The VM



View attachment 102494


(Note typical Linux doesn't need that size -- but if I'm testing why not Stress test).

Who needs VMware etc -- my only complaint is dynamic USB re-direction -- it's still a bit of a pain to have to install / attach all devices at VM boot -- but for once Well done Ms.

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

Main weakness of Linux distros on Hyper-V is most can only be run in basic mode which cannot play sound, and sharing host Windows drives is more difficult.

The only distro I found that run in enhanced mode and was also easy to enable sound was Kali.

Sound could be enabled in Ubuntu after a lot of faffing around.

Even then, sound could lag behind video making watching videos painful.

cereberus said:

Main weakness of Linux distros on Hyper-V is most can only be run in basic mode which cannot play sound, and sharing host Windows drives is more difficult.

The only distro I found that run in enhanced mode and was also easy to enable sound was Kali.

Sound could be enabled in Ubuntu after a lot of faffing around.

Even then, sound could lag behind video making watching videos painful.

Click to expand...

No problem with what I need to do.

If I need sound -- just play the audio . video files on the HOST - just use SAMBA etc on the VM to share files with Host.
So long as you've got decent HOST/GUEST communication via decent LAN etc then playing videos / audio files shouldn't be a problem.



I'm happy with how it works currently -- although my biggest gripe as I've said is I'd want Dynamic USB redirection to work. But I can live with that.

Also easy to share files etc so just use HOST system for multi-media. Ensure SAMBA amd openssh installed on the guest.

From GUEST to HOST -- I'm getting a load more enthousiastic over HYPER-V -- if only W11 itself didn't have a load of overheads.




Cheers
jimbo

I just tested Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.04 on Hyper-V. After some fiddling I got Enhanced Session enabled by configuring XRDP service. Works fine but not great. Also Audio works.

SlicEnDicE said:

I just tested Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.04 on Hyper-V. After some fiddling I got Enhanced Session enabled by configuring XRDP service. Works fine but not great. Also Audio works.

Click to expand...

Is audio in sync with video if you play a veideo or something from youtube?

cereberus said:

Is audio in sync with video if you play a veideo or something from youtube?

Click to expand...

I think so yeah...have to verify this further though...video playback is very sluggish due to missing HW acceleration.

I'm running Ubuntu as a hyper-v guest and two windows 10 test machines. Happy with them. There were some packages to install for Ubuntu working better with the built in manager.

linux-virtual linux-cloud-tools-common linux-image-virtual linux-headers-virtual

Click to expand...

SlicEnDicE said:

I think so yeah...have to verify this further though...video playback is very sluggish due to missing HW acceleration.

Click to expand...

I think that's a problem on the HOST side if Hyper-V doesn't itself enable video / HW acceleration.

If you have a spare GPU on your host and can pass thru it to the GUEST then the GUEST drivers can sort the video problem out since native rather than paravirtualised drivers will be used. For passthru to work though you need in the machine's hardware BIOS setup to enable IOMMAX if not already set.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I think that's a problem on the HOST side if Hyper-V doesn't itself enable video / HW acceleration.

Click to expand...

No, Hyper-V does not support virtual GPUs/shared GPU resources. Only dedicated GPUs, which I can't "lend" to the VM from the host.

Hi folks
The old venerable Debian system with KDE and Generation 2 system runs sound and video OK on a bog standard old HP envy laptop with i5 Gen 6 intel CPU (This laptop shouldn't even be Running Win 11 in the ist place !!!!!).

disable secure boot to get the install iso to boot within hyper-V and then just install. The iso won't boot if seccure boot is enabled. You can enable secure boot for the VM after install if you so wish.

Works perfectly. !!

I think a lot of the video problems might be when X11 / XORG isn't used on distros and wayland, plasma-wayland used where appropriate. Wayland should still really be considered as BETA software currently. If you install a vnc server on linux then you can RDP from windows but that's far too much hassle when xrdp works straight OOTB with no configuration required.

Fedora (latest version) with KDE can't be Rdp'd TO FROM Windows because it's not using X11 any more.

If you aren't using KDE as the Linux desktop then these problems might not arise but I detest GNOME, and prefer KDE to other Window managers / GUI's.

For my money Hyper-V beats clearly VmWare or Virtual Box if you are running W11 Pro -- even for Linux VM's. I'm not sure whether it will run a Windows XP VM as I'm not sure whether XP can handle even a paravirtualised scsi disk controller -- without a bit of fiddling XP needs IDE drivers.

@Bree

Did you ever get an XP VM to work on Hyper-V with Host disks sharable?

Anyway I'm statisfied as to the capabilities of Hyper-V for running VM's on a Windows Host -- even Linux VM's. I've tested around 4 different distros and apart from the known Wayland problem for RDP they've all worked more than adequately.

(With debian you need to ensure user is not logged on into a KDE session --then it works properly --otherwise just a black screen).



Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

disable secure boot to get the install iso to boot within hyper-V and then just install. The iso won't boot if seccure boot is enabled. You can enable secure boot for the VM after install if you so wish.

Click to expand...

Secure boot might work just fine.
For Linux VM - you therefore need to modify the setting template to: Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority
Otherwise it expects a Windows VM by default.