it's that time again where I really want a pinebook
but rationally I know it's by *far* not powerful enough, current T460s is in good condition and still struggles with half my workloads
and if I'd start changing things to be lighter (offloading to a remote server for example), I could just be using my T460s with that setup...
I got someone to help me with a first parts draft :)
software wise I'm thinking of
- a tiny linux install that runs KVM / autostarts virt-manager stuff
- server install
- desktop install which gets the GPU
and then when im not using it actively, suspend the desktop install so it can shut off the GPU and use less power, while still possibly using all CPU cores if needed
@f0x Ooh, I've got a similar setup going right now, though my hypervisor is my productivity system on an IGP while I just run Windows in a VM with the discrete GPU :o Nice compartmentalization design though--will the hypervisor be accessible over serial?
@elfi really not sure yet, waiting for my reddit thread to hopefully get some more knowledgable opinions on it
@f0x Well, I've only done this once so I can't offer much, especially since I worked from an Intel CPU and not an AMD one, so I don't know any potential pitfalls with its virtualization engine in kvm ;w; but I'll do what I can to help check things over if you want
@elfi thanks, all the details are on https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/fn27ss/dual_use_desktopserver/ :)
@elfi thanks a lot for the info!
@f0x No problem! :D I think the biggest thing to watch out for is that the system can't be truly headless, so you'll have to start the hypervisor with the boot GPU, then pass it off to a guest. The arch wiki has advice on that at least so you should be good. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF#Passing_the_boot_GPU_to_the_guest
@f0x AMD CPUs pretty much universally have the virtualization functionality required by kvm, so that's no problem; I dunno how well AMD graphics cards play with vfio-pci's power management but it should work just fine if the card supports D3 hot sleep.
Software-wise, I haven't mucked about with virt-manager much beyond what I needed to get things running, but it should be possible to adjust CPU parameters by adding hooks to it.