Subj : Coming back to Linux To : Accession From : hyjinx Date : Sat Sep 27 2025 09:49:51 Ac> Hey hyjinx! Hey Nick! I think your advice has cemented my purchasing decisions. Gawd I feel like such a newb! How getting old and out of the loop changes things, yet, I suppose some of it stays the same. Ac> I still am not sure what you're trying to do with the VMs, though. Do you Ac> a full host OS for every day use, while running multiple VMs in something Ac> runs on the host OS? Or do you want to run a full fledged hypervisor as th Ac> host OS, and run a bunch of VMs under it? The specific use case is actually first and foremost a business one: I want to create a Linux host that will run everyday tasks, such as email and web browsing etc. Nothing too heavy. But I also want another (probably VM) that will be a Wazuh SIEM project that I am brewing up. Wazuh usually comes in a cluster, so it might be 3 small VMs, or perhaps a chonky VM running docker with 3 containers. Then I need a bunch of Windows VMs to spin up from a 'gold image' - I'd be running all sorts of malware on them to see how well the Wazuh SIEM dealt to these infections. The eventual outcome of all of this is that one day, if the outcome works the way I want it to, then I might have a SOC/SIEM solution to offer potential clients. At that point, I'd transfer the workload to the cloud and run it there. I also have a bunch of NUC boxes lying around here for lightweight development projects running simple LAMP stacks. I'd consolidate them onto this box, they'd run on another small Linux VM as MVPs. Once they are proven, again, they'd go into the cloud. Next and finally, I would *like* to have a Windows VM to do Windowsy stuff if needs be. However, since I would buy 2x M2 drives, I was wondering if it was better to have a dual boot situation and keep it as a bare metal system. My main thought around Windowsy stuff was games, but to be honest, the status of Steam on Linux is so good these days, I might not need that at all, so the only remaining need for Windows vs Linux would be Video Editing. As I say, Davinci Resolve on Linux is crippled (unnecessarily IMO) and last time I played with KDEnlive it was still horrid despite a major version upgrade. The interesting and fun thing about my Linux host is what distro to choose. Do I stick with something I know well like POP!_OS, or do I go with something new like Omarchy. I love i3, and Omarchy looks really nice, but it's built on Arch, and Arch is a pain in the keester for doing everyday work. As I say, I just want to do email, browse the web, run Teams/Zoom/Google Meet for calls and run my various calendars (I have 6 calendars across clients that use MS365, Google Workspaces and such). Google is fine, MS... well... I'm happy to run VMWare Fusion, Virtualbox or even QEMU/KVM. I might check out VMWare Fusion since it is now free and apparently a lot more stable and performant than Virtualbox. I've used it within the last 2-3 years and it was pretty decent. Ac> > Hard drive(s): Ac> Ac> Hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper these days, and you can add a Ac> of them, if you need to. What do you think about my decision to go 2 drives rather than 1? Ac> The 5xxx series is the latest, so it will probably last you much longer th Ac> 3xxx series will, so consider that in the difference in price, too. That's Ac> completely up to you, though. Sounds good advice to me! Ac> greatest games, Then saving the $200 may be worth it. Would the guy at the Ac> computer shop even be willing to put a 5 year old GPU in that machine, tho Ac> and still offer you the same warranty? I don't know... Well, since these are still 'new' cards, the warranty will be the same as all the other stuff. I dare say 12 months RTB. They don't sell 2nd hand stuff. Ac> I've never used VMs for gaming, to be honest.. so I wouldn't know the answ Ac> that. I did specifically choose to keep my gaming/every day use machine Ac> separate from my server machine, though. Granted, my "server" machine is Ac> hosting 2-3 VMs for BBS/FTN related tasks and a fourth for tinkering with I have seen some other comments on other areas saying these days, GPU passthru is pretty decent and works well, so I will take them at their word :) Again, 100 thanks for your advice! Cheers, Al hyjinx // Alistair Ross Author of 'Back to the BBS' Documentary: https://bit.ly/3tRINeL (YouTube) alsgeeklab.com --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64) * Origin: bbs.alsgeeklab.com:2323 (21:1/126) .