In search for alternatives, decided to test drive “gnome boxes“, which is said, to be an easy-going gui for the libvirt qemu virtualization system.
lsb_release -d; # tested on Description: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) su - root apt update # with MATE Desktop (Gnome2) it's actually only 175MBytes that needs to be downloaded apt install gnome-boxes apt show gnome-boxes Package: gnome-boxes Version: 3.38.2-1 Priority: optional Section: gnome Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers <x> Installed-Size: 7,140 kB Depends: genisoimage, libosinfo-bin, libvirt-daemon, tracker (>= 2.0), dconf-gsettings-backend | gsettings-backend, libarchive13 (>= 3.1.2), libc6 (>= 2.7), libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0), libfreerdp2-2 (>= 2.0.0~git20160317.1.75ae3f5+dfsg1), libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 (>= 2.25.2) | libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.25.2), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.52.0), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.22.20), libgtk-vnc-2.0-0 (>= 0.5.1), libgtksourceview-4-0 (>= 2.91.4), libgudev-1.0-0 (>= 165), libhandy-0.0-0 (>= 0.0.11), libosinfo-1.0-0 (>= 1.4.0~), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libsecret-1-0 (>= 0.7), libsoup2.4-1 (>= 2.44), libspice-client-glib-2.0-8 (>= 0.35), libspice-client-gtk-3.0-5 (>= 0.32), libtracker-sparql-2.0-0 (>= 0.10.0), libusb-1.0-0 (>= 2:1.0.8), libvirt-glib-1.0-0 (>= 3.0.0), libvte-2.91-0 (>= 0.40.2), libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 (>= 2.26), libwinpr2-2 (>= 2.0.0~git20160317.1.75ae3f5+dfsg1), libxml2 (>= 2.7.8) Recommends: qemu-system-x86 Breaks: libspice-server1 (<< 0.12.5-1.1~) Homepage: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes Tag: admin::virtualization, hardware::emulation, implemented-in::python, implemented-in::vala, interface::graphical, interface::x11, role::program, scope::application, suite::gnome, suite::openstack, system::cloud, system::virtual, uitoolkit::gtk, use::simulating, use::viewing, x11::application Download-Size: 1,085 kB APT-Manual-Installed: yes APT-Sources: http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages Description: Simple GNOME app to access remote or virtual systems GNOME Boxes is a desktop client to view or use local virtual machines, remote physical machines, or remote virtual machines. Boxes is intentionally simple and easy to use. Hardware virtualization is required to use local virtual machines.
as minimalistic as the description is the gui:
indeed nothing against a bit of gui minimalism…
kvm is developed by Redhat… that’s why it is right there on top… but there is more for “easy” or “instant” install…
would have been nice, if the disk size can be directly entered in numbers as well…
also a checkbox for “thin provisioning” would have been nice
but it definately works
the vm properties tab, might be a bit too minimalistic… when changing vm settings afterwards, the user will have to rely on the user’s xml editing skillz ;-p
this is a nicely done overview screen… showing real time thumbnails of the all vm’s current desktop…
when almost finished installing Debian 11… gnome boxes skips the “where to install grub” screen and reports “debian 11 is ready to use”
but it won’t boot X-D
just in case if the cursor is “stuck” it can be released by hitting Ctrl+Alt
the gui minimalism is a nice try, but gnome-boxes got some quality issues there, not ready for use with Debian, not ready to replace redhat’s kvm’s excellent virtmanager, which works flawless under GNU Linux Debian and has way more settings to modify vms
how to uninstall gnome-boxes
apt --purge remove gnome-boxes apt autoremove # not sure why gnome boxes needs dpkg -l|grep tracker ii tracker 2.3.6-2 amd64 metadata database, indexer and search tool ii tracker-extract 2.3.5-2.1 amd64 metadata database, indexer and search tool - metadata extractors ii tracker-miner-fs 2.3.5-2.1 amd64 metadata database, indexer and search tool - filesystem indexer
https://dwaves.de/2020/12/05/gnu-linux-debian-10-how-to-install-kvm-virtualization-qemu-basic-virsh-commands-kvm-cheat-sheed/
running a full blown desktop container?
this user demonstrates… it is possible… even under win!
the good thing about docker:
- it’s lightweight
- saving on disk space as it re-uses the host’s files.
- e.g. if the host is Debian and the container is Debian, the container will be very small in size
- if container is RedHat, it will be larger in size, because more files are different
imho not sure if things changed, but what was a downside of docker vs virtualization, that docker messes a lot with (iptables) firewall ruleset.
virtualization + containers?
containers inside vms!
So docker would make sense not directly on a host, but inside a virtual machine, where the admin can control the host’s firewall completely and docker can mess up the firewall of the virtualmachine 🙂
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