this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, but they're all the same. Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, I've tried them all, and there isn't a discernable difference.
True, all but NixOS and indistinguishable.
Guix doesn't count.
Well, I'm currently using VMware on Ubuntu to run Win 10 and Kali Linux. I don't know what exactly caused the problem, it was either Ubuntu's updates or VMware's updates, but now Win 10 is unusable because it crashes (same with Kali Linux)
Ubuntu imho is unstable in and of itself because of the frequent updates so I'm looking for another distro that prioritizes stability.
Well there's your mistake: using VMware on a Linux host.
QEMU/KVM is where it's at on Linux, mostly because it's built into the kernel a bit like Hyper-V is built into Windows. So it integrates much better with the Linux host which leads to fewer problems.
Maybe, but it's still Linux. There's always an escape hatch if the Ubuntu packages don't cut it. But I manage thousands of Ubuntu servers, some of which are very large hypervisors running hundreds of VMs each, and they also run Ubuntu and work just fine.
I just installed QEMU/KVM.
Hopefully, I'll be able to get it to run Win 10 and Kali
It'll definitely run Kali well, Windows will be left without hardware acceleration for 2D/3D so it'll be a little laggy but it's usable.
VMware has its own driver that converts enough DirectX for Windows to run smoother and not fall back to the basic VGA path.
But VMware being proprietary software, changing distro won't make it better so it's either you deal with the VMware bugs or you deal with stable but slow software rendering Windows.
That said on the QEMU side, it's possible to attach one of your host's GPUs to the VM, where it will get full 3D acceleration. Many people are straight up gaming in competitive online games, in a VM with QEMU. If you have more than one GPU, even if it's an integrated GPU + a dedicated one like is common with most Intel consumer non-F CPUs, you can make that happen and it's really nice. Well worth buying a used GTX 1050 or RX 540 if your workflow depends on a Windows VM running smoothly. Be sure your CPU and motherboard support it properly before investing though, it can be finicky, but so awesome when it works.
Thanks for the tip!
You can install the virtual drivers in windows to get better graphics acceleration.
They mostly don't exist yet apart from this PR.
On Vista and up, there's only the Display Only Driver (DOD) driver which gets resolutions and auto resizing to work, but it's got no graphical acceleration in itself.
I use
virt-managerGUI to control KVM easily, but you can control anything easily withvirshcommand lines. I dislike VMware and VirtualBox, neither needed. Also, on terminal clientvirshyou can do much more configurations than just withvirt-manager.virt-managercan also connect to remote hosts over sshRemember that Desktop and Server editions are very different in terms of stability. Ubuntu has got to be one of the, if not the, most widely used linux distros for servers, that's where the money is really in for them, so it's more deeply tested before release to the public at large, but in my experience, in the last decade or so, Ubuntu is painfully lacking on too many fronts in it's desktop versions.
My only issue with qemu is that folder sharing is not a great experience with windows guests. Other than that Ive had a great experience, especially using it with aqemu
I would second Debian for stability, it's what I use for all my VM servers. I have always preferred KVM however, as I had a lot of trouble with VMware hogging my cpu years ago. KVM has the virtual machine manager available for GUI monitoring but I'm not sure how far it goes for creating new VMs as I've always handled the setup directly from command line.
Since you've been on Ubuntu, I would suggest Debian. The commands are pretty much the same across the board, and it's one of the most stable distros in the wild.
I mean Debian worked well before I fucked up
Frequent updates? Are you on an lts version?
No, I was relatively new to Ubuntu when I started using it so I didn't have the wisdom to choose the LTS version.