Kvm with Debian 10

[alikzn101]

Hi guys

I am new to Debian but have used Centos and Ubuntu before.
I am trying to get feedback on how efficient VMs are on a Debian 10 host.
I have read that since KVM is actively developed by RedHat that I should rather
stick with Centos as a host, but I have used it successfully with Ubuntu before.

My VMs will run Centos 7/8 and Debian 10, my host will be Debian 10.

Thanks
Al

[Bulkley]

Do a search on this site. There are many discussions about VMs including KVM.

[Deb-fan]

^ Him of course, Kvm is the subject of many no doubt quite thick books and decent sized pdf's etc.

As the name implies KERNEL-VM, it's integrated into the kernel, doesn't matter much which distro base were to be used as host. Though that's not strictly true, as newer kernels and software pkgs for it can obviously bring improved support, added features + bug fixes etc.

However, newer kerns can easily be used with Debian stable, newer pkgs are avail in backports, can be self backported when not etc etc etc. Tuning a Nix OS intended to be used to great extent to host VM's is no small 1, 2, 3 easy n peasy thing, same goes for optimizing those guest VM's. Google, plus much time, effort, hands on experience are anybody's friend, who's willing to pay their dues to learn about anything.

PS, Oops, also like everything gnu/Linux there are no doubt already distro's setup specifically to host VM's too.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

CentOS 8 runs an older kernel than Debian buster so KVM support is likely to be better under Debian stable.

[Deb-fan]

Note: I'm also making it sound more complicated than it has to be. Using KVM, setting up VM's etc is really almost self explanatory if all someone is going for is wanting to run xyz-VM's. Are gui'ey tools which should make it a snap. I mean it's not necessary for a person to get an advanced degree in kvmology to use it and have things work well.

I tend towards uncontrollable tweakage and optimizationism though. Seen it stated a properly setup VM using a real hypervisor(kvm is one of those)is supposed to be capable of around 2% same performance as an actual bare-metal installed OS. That's likely even better now, kvm has been improved on since last bothered reading about the subject. Stuff I was alluding to, if the host OS is bloated, config'ed poorly, is using excessive sys-resources itself, isn't tuned for the purpose, that leaves less resources for the guest vm's, both host and guests can be uber-optimized (deduplication of workload etc.) Depends on how much or little the person setting things up wants to do/learn.

Even just out-of-box with any degree of common sense, kvm vm's should run well regardless. Though yep, again ... are distro's which came out for the niche, are config'ed and tuned to whatever extent to host vm's. A person with the interest would have to go looking for them ...