[solved] Question - installing Xorg on gentoo KVM guest vm

[Elleni]

I have a gentoo guest installed on a ProxMox Hypervisor. While until recently console access was enough, I would like to also use it with a gui in the future. Thus I installed xorg-server, but I am not able to run it successfully. I am also unsure on which vgpu driver would give the best performance. The host has the following installed:

[NeddySeagoon]

Elleni,

Lets clarify a few things before we get into the weeds.

The Hypervisor 'fakes' a whole PC is software to provide an environment for the guests.
There are two ways it can do that.
1. It can fake real hardware is software, so that guests can run unmodified. They must be able to drive the 'hardware'.
2. Hosts and guests can support virtio. this requires support from both.

Whatever, do the install, including Xorg to suit the guest environment, Whatever that is.

Lets start with

[Elleni]

Hi Neddy,

here is the asked output:
lspci -nnk

[Elleni]

From what I am reading the virGL solution is meant to offload opengl to the host GPU? As its a proliant server with a mg200 does it make sense at all, to try this out or is the gpu simply to old and weak? Does this gpu support opengl at all? I mean, I wont play games on this gentoo vm, the goal is to just have smooth experience on browser (including audio-/video streams) for example, and on desktop effects. So maybe better just let the cpus do the drawing for all the vm's displays? I am beginning to doubt if the host GPU is even worth to try offloading drawing to it, and if it would be wiser to use other options. I mean if this chip is just intended to do very basic vga functionality then I'd better forget opengl 3d acceleration? What are the options left then, and which ones should be tried out anyway? virtio (not virgl) and qxl and then compare with basic vga? And which of the below solutions could work best / are worth a try?

For accessing the vm I also see different solutions whereas I would like to ask for your opinion on what should perform best:

- xfreerdp server to directly access it from windows boxes via ms rdp?
- vnc?
- spice?
- x2go?
- nomachine?
- thinlinc?
- other?

[NeddySeagoon]

Elleni,

There is nothing wrong with any of that. As you say, the host mg200 won't help much.
Servers were never intended for GPU intensive applications.

Your alterative video driver is spice. That means changing the VM settings on the host and changing video drivers in the guest.
QXL seems to work too.

Looking at xorg-drivers it supports

[Elleni]

Hi Neddy,

thanks for your tips, so I will try the now implemented standard vga, qxl and spice then. As I have plenty of ram and cpu's I'll check which one works best. I'd love to remote connect to the vm using a de like plasma or gnome thus would like to optimize the performance as much as possible with this setup.

What would you suggest for accessing the vm besides spice to get the most out of it? Which tech could be also worth trying? xfreerdp for direct rdp from win rdp? what else might worth looking into it? Having plenty of free disk/ram/cpu ressources on my 2node ProxMox Cluster I will definitiverly play with those suggested options. Thanks

[NeddySeagoon]

Elleni,

All my VMs are headless, so I don't have any experience with VM graphics.

Thought.
Xorg is 'network transparent'. That means the applications can run on one system and display the output on another.
xorg-server is only installed on the system that will drive the display.
The clients generating the images for remote display do not use it.
That's why its not an error to install X applications without xorg-server. It's designed to work that way.

The protocol is horribly insecure, so you either need to run it on a trusted network or tunnel it over ssh.
I've not used it in years but I'm pretty sure its still there.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Elleni]

After playing around one day, I can tell that standard vga is already usable somehow, but qxl with spice is faster and surprisingly virtiogpu (not virgl) without hardware 3d support but equally with spice seems the fastest on my setup.

I am now in the process of re-compiling the system with more supported cpu flags as I changed kernel processor type and features from kvm standard (generic) cpu to intel - native (experimental useflag on gentoo sources) which enables many more cpu instructions supported.

I will continue playing and testing to get the most performance out of the vm.

Neddy - x11 forwarding to other client through ssh - been there, done that and it was quite fun.

What I want now, is to have decent performance while using the vm remotley - mostly from a windows client. Thus I will try x2go and vnc to compare them with spice / virtio or qxl. What is really cool about spice is that I can add an audio device on the host to the vmconfig, and that way audio is played on the client accessing the vm by virt-viewer. I will see how audio is possible through the other mentioned solutions. Maybe I'll also try to install xfree-rdp server to directly use ms remote desktop for comparison.

Compiling tools and software I am unsure what useflags could help enhancing the experience on the vm and which ones are not helping, for example vdpau and vaapi, x265, x264. Does it make sense to add those in make.conf?

In everycase as the solution to the initial problem was not having started dbus service, I added solved in the thread title, but would still be interested in thoughts while setting up this vm and inspecting what different useflags the progs I install have to offer.