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Why I adpoted Debian.

Here you can discuss every aspect of Debian. Note: not for support requests!
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Tekmon_Xonic
Posts: 28
Joined: 2018-06-15 21:23

Re: Why I adpoted Debian.

#21 Post by Tekmon_Xonic »

@ CwF

You're very welcome.

From what you've been describing about Windows XP. I'm amazed at how far we can still push the ol' faithful operating system. If only we could get the source code to Windows XP, that would make a lot of people happy, and open up a metric frick ton of possibility. Heck, I would still be using Windows XP as my standard OS if I could get away with it. *Looks up the Xenon E3* That's a pretty powerful family of processors as well, it still amazes me to see the hardware that XP currently supports. I'm glad that you got that mother board working. Even if you had to jury rig it to do what you want. But that's what we do after all right? :wink:

I'm also glad to see that augmenting WIndows XP through virtual machines is really working out for you. It reminds me of my experience with video game console emulators. I found a really cool save editor for Breath of Fire II, and used it along with a correctly translated copy of the game to get a hidden character much earlier on in the game. It was really cool. Additionally, I find virtual machines to be quite useful. I'm currently using OM Virtual Box to run Windows XP for certain things, and boy let me tell you, it's faster than anything that I've ever seen. Installing Windows XP on it is done in like a few minutes, and the OS loads lightning fast too. Pretty amazing stuff.

In Sim City 4, better watch out for them giant alien servo robots! Their dinner plates are a force to be reckoned with. :shock:

CwF
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Re: Why I adpoted Debian.

#22 Post by CwF »

@ Tekmon_Xonic
...and anyone else interested...

To keep it on track here, DEBIAN is the foundation!
...but more XP notes:

I went around in circles multiple times on multiple machines with many configurations. I was open to qemu kvm, VB, and Wine. The end game was to be able to use my tools for OBDII, mainly tuning Duramax ECM's and Allison TCM's. This is a USB device that prefers XP and is very important! Short story is the communication with the device is only reliable with a vfio passed usb. That boiled down to KVM. The program benefits from dual monitors, that boils down to KVM. The program runs on all methods, but the usb pass only on KVM. This is the firmware for expensive stuff bouncing over usb, it needs to be perfect and not good enough.
I did build up one experiment with VB. A nested hypervisor running a live dvd of debian 8.5. This live dvd VM had 24GB of memory, I loaded VB 5.1 something, then allocated 6GB of memory for a ramdisk, another 1.0GB for memory and installed XP, then installed SC4 (just copy over files and run a registry file), and it worked. Turn off the machine and it disappears. A fantastic waste of resources in every sense, but it worked well. Months ago I dl'ed the stretch VB stuff but have not pursued it yet but that would get SC4 onto my X9 and I would officially be at 100% function, I've been lazy.
A long long story simplified, KVM and vfio hardware makes all the difference. Passing a vfio usb is simple, adding a card and passing that can be done if the motherboard doesn't have a good choice. Passing video is typically the talk of vm gaming machines, as mentioned after trying many I settled on a Quadro K600. The memory limit still exist for XP, so cards with 1GB or less work best. Quadro drivers also pass 3D acceleration to a QXL driven window on the host if your so inclined. Running 2 heads on the vm also benefits from a vfio passed network card. This allows much better networking among the host and vm's and also allows x2vnc so the mouse simply tracks over to either xp vm screen perfectly, and allows efficient cut-n-paste. I have no window open on the host for the XP Pro VM except an XTerm to turn on/off x2vnc. Note I gave up on virtio drivers, QXL video does work well for my XP Home, but virtio network and storage caused issues. The Home has a balloon driver and is on an i440FX while Pro has no balloon driver and is a Q35 machine type. Then we add a vfio passed pcie HDTV tuner, add a usb version also... Right now I'm typing here in a debian VM on screen 2 and I can mouse over to screen 3 or 4 which is XP and change the TV channel! but I'm listening to HD AM radio from a visteon module (not done yet). So imagine recording HD TV while watching a movie or another channel, while a 4 core handbrake VM is crunching away, a facebook vm is collecting fake news (isolate this crap), a trader VM is watching the market, and I'm typing here in a vm oblivious to all the activity in the background! The host has been up for weeks, yes DEBIAN rocks.

Also note that the XP's on read-only backing files cannot be corrupted or infected and can be moved to another machine. That's 1.1GB for Home and 1.7GB for Pro, nice and tidy. I've successfully rotated these vm's between the X8 and the X9, I'll post back when I migrate them to something new. Of concern is some change on the host, with VB or otherwise, that causes a vm failure that needs reinstalled. I don't really trust VB as much as KVM in this regard. Overall VB is heavier than KVM. Without vfio passed assistance VB is more powerful and you probably can pass hardware to VB as easily as KVM but with native video in the vm I feel VB no longer has any advantage. I agree that VB has vastly superior virtual video over QXL but I expect that will change as KVM's QXL video gains 3D capabilities, we'll see.

All in all, XP is still very much my daily OS for off line computing and will be for another decade or more.

Tekmon_Xonic
Posts: 28
Joined: 2018-06-15 21:23

Re: Why I adpoted Debian.

#23 Post by Tekmon_Xonic »

@ CwF

Fake news on facebook (yeah, tell me about it man.) Keeping an eye on the market. Watching HDTV, and listening to an HD Radio Station. Sounds like you've got quite a setup going there CwF. :)

Also, its nice to know that you've found the best virtual machine to work with on Debian. That's what I've found that I often have to do, is experiment until I have found the best configuration possible. Sometimes I even find that I have to use multiple configurations to get things right.

This is especially true for running Virtual machines for me personally. I've found that Microsoft's Virtual PC runs Windows 98 exceptionally well, unlike OM Virtual Box, which has a lot of trouble running it, at least from my experience. I use Windows 98 to run one of my favorite legacy games of all time. Lego Creator. A really powerful sandbox game that never got a true sequel. But when it comes to Windows XP, I've found that OM Virtual Box runs it very efficiently. Though I might have to peak around for other VM Software. Because I often find the sound with Windows XP through OM Virtual Box to be crackly, which gets on my nerves.

Still, good luck with Windows XP, CwF. I really hope it works out for you! 8)

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