Windows, other os virtual machine support

[dimen363]

Instead of releasing windows or other os specific drivers for steam deck that are still having problems or coming up with windows dualboot solution for SteamOS installer - how about having the ability to install an operating system on SteamOS, Steam deck as a seperate virtual machine and have an option to do so via native steam deck interface. That way you could possibly be able to use your SD card as an installation location, control all the things regarding performance OS-wide (refresh rate, TDP, Scaling, GPU Clock, etc.), be able to use SteamOS and other operating systems at the same time, and also avoid many driver related issues.

[Starlogical★]

1. You still need drivers passed through otherwise you're using generic VM drivers which are kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for anything beyond basic computer ♥♥♥♥.

2. The Deck is a very capable machine but not a very capable VM machine. Only 16GB of RAM as a whole doesn't bode well with VMs.

3. If you're trying to play games via a VM know that you'll need to pass the GPU onto Windows from Linux via IOMMU and so far we haven't really found a practical way to do so.

4. Most games that use anticheat don't play nicely with VMs period, so using a Windows VM to play those games typically doesn't end well.

[dimen363]

Originally posted by Starlogical★:

1. You still need drivers passed through otherwise you're using generic VM drivers which are kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for anything beyond basic computer ♥♥♥♥.

2. The Deck is a very capable machine but not a very capable VM machine. Only 16GB of RAM as a whole doesn't bode well with VMs.

3. If you're trying to play games via a VM know that you'll need to pass the GPU onto Windows from Linux via IOMMU and so far we haven't really found a practical way to do so.

4. Most games that use anticheat don't play nicely with VMs period, so using a Windows VM to play those games typically doesn't end well.

1. It's possible to automate driver installation, for example, by creating a driver image that would mount after OS installation. That image could be updated along with SteamOS.

2. I don't understand what RAM amount has to do with virtual machine capability - if you are going to switch between SteamOS interface and virtual machine at a time then there should be almost just as much memory and resources available to run a virtual machine without much issue, especially considering steam deck has quad channel LPDDR5 ram on board.

3. Who exactly are "we"? I am pretty sure with some tinkering people have been already able to pass through single gpu on linux to a windows vm with near-native performance, and steam deck already has proper IOMMU support. If your virtual machine settings are pre-defined for you then there shouldn't be any problems too.

4. That could be an issue that needs solving.

Do understand that this suggestion is made for the purpose of not losing or constantly reinstalling SteamOS and making the whole process of installing additional OS much more user friendly, visually pleasing and understandable for new users doing it, to offer an alternative to SteamOS dual-boot solution.

[Marlock]

Gnome Boxes is available as a Flatpak, so it should be easy to install on the Deck via the Discovery store in desktop mode

https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Boxes

From there, you should be able to automatically install windows to a new VM, then suffer through setting it up, updating (hogging up your internet bandwidth and storage), navigating through EULAs and privacy and performance tweaks to make it less insane, etc

It's not bad to have the option, per se... it's just generally not such a great option for users because it's a full-fat windows under something else, and because it actually maintains the gamers under microsoft handcuffs which Valve is keen to break, so I doubt they'll invest any of their dev time in it instead of investing even more in Proton

[Prezidentas]

I'd like VMs on the deck too, though of course not for gaming, since that's basically impossible.

[ogremalfeitor]

This could however enable users to create a VM with android-x86 or brunchOS and play some android games on the deck... anyone ever tried that?

Also, do the VMs created by Boxes (when installed as a flatpak) have KVM acceleration? Would really like to know, because if they do not, most likely are so slow that are not worth the hassle...

[DDSCentral]

I got VMware Workstation to run on SteamOS without unlocking the rootfs.
The setup is not trivial. It involves an overlay file system and several custom-written shell scripts to load VMware drivers and services. But it will survive updates.
Since it is overlay based, I might share my setup if there's any interest.
Windows runs pretty well in a VM with 8GB memory and is very usable (not for games though).
My plan is to use this setup with Nexdock for coding work.

[lululock]

Originally posted by DDSCentral:

I got VMware Workstation to run on SteamOS without unlocking the rootfs.
The setup is not trivial. It involves an overlay file system and several custom-written shell scripts to load VMware drivers and services. But it will survive updates.
Since it is overlay based, I might share my setup if there's any interest.
Windows runs pretty well in a VM with 8GB memory and is very usable (not for games though).
My plan is to use this setup with Nexdock for coding work.

Hi !
Do you have a repository with a guide on how to install VMware Workstation ?
Thanks

[Daoxin]

Originally posted by DDSCentral:

I got VMware Workstation to run on SteamOS without unlocking the rootfs.
The setup is not trivial. It involves an overlay file system and several custom-written shell scripts to load VMware drivers and services. But it will survive updates.
Since it is overlay based, I might share my setup if there's any interest.
Windows runs pretty well in a VM with 8GB memory and is very usable (not for games though).
My plan is to use this setup with Nexdock for coding work.

Late to this but I am interested in what you did to do this

[britain]

I'm using GNOME Boxes to virtualize Windows 10, installed from an ISO.

It works ok for what I need, which is to play 5 minutes of Solitaire a day (for MS Game Pass quests). It also handles Peggle okay. Vampire Survivors was a little slow. I'm not trying to run Lies of P on it or anything. I had to create a control scheme for it to be able to use the trackpad to control the mouse pointer, but touchscreen just worked.

The clock on the VM doesn't sync when I wake it from sleep or hibernation, but it's fine after I reboot the VM, so I've gotten into the habit of shutting down the VM when I'm done. It's annoying but it's worth the 50 points to me.
 
I started it with 20 GB, which turns out to be not quite enough. I have expanded the amount of storage space available to it in Boxes preferences, but I can't figure out how to expand the C: drive in the virtualized Win10, so it throws errors that it's out of disk space.

Tempted to try the process again with a VHD file and skip installing from the iso to see if it runs differently or better. I have Win 11 installed on an SD card and that works once it's booted, but I hate rebooting to switch between OSes just for a few minutes of solitaire. I'd rather be playing Steam games or streaming games from xCloud.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by ogremalfeitor:

This could however enable users to create a VM with android-x86 or brunchOS and play some android games on the deck... anyone ever tried that?

Also, do the VMs created by Boxes (when installed as a flatpak) have KVM acceleration? Would really like to know, because if they do not, most likely are so slow that are not worth the hassle...

The problem is that the steam deck isn't a multi seat GPU. Believe me, many people and myself included ask AMD for a two seat consumer GPU. It would be nice for the community to build around SR-IOV

https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/

Our only hope is Valve asks AMD to fab one like they did for the Xbox One/S/X

https://github.com/Arc-Compute/LibVF.IO/

These features are enterprise products. Games use case overlap with enterprise quite well.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by ogremalfeitor:

This could however enable users to create a VM with android-x86 or brunchOS and play some android games on the deck... anyone ever tried that?

Also, do the VMs created by Boxes (when installed as a flatpak) have KVM acceleration? Would really like to know, because if they do not, most likely are so slow that are not worth the hassle...

The problem is that the steam deck isn't a multi seat GPU. Believe me, many people and myself included ask AMD for a two seat consumer GPU. It would be nice for the community to build around SR-IOV

https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/

Our only hope is Valve asks AMD to fab one like they did for the Xbox One/S/X

https://github.com/Arc-Compute/LibVF.IO/

These features are enterprise products. Games use case overlap with enterprise quite well.

it's smarter for valve to use that extra fab money to make Linux better, then you won't need such GPU features at all.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

it's smarter for valve to use that extra fab money to make Linux better, then you won't need such GPU features at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo

This feature will make Linux better. Once you are able to depend on the feature, OS designers are more likely to use it.

Security means better reliability and distributing Games turned out to be difficult problem.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

it's smarter for valve to use that extra fab money to make Linux better, then you won't need such GPU features at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo

This feature will make Linux better. Once you are able to depend on the feature, OS designers are more likely to use it.

Security means better reliability and distributing Games turned out to be difficult problem.

What actual uses does this have outside of digital rights management? Assuming that you don't need to virtualize Windows for gaming.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

What actual uses does this have outside of digital rights management? Assuming that you don't need to virtualize Windows for gaming.

Making applications unaware of their environment. Helps capability and reduce the number of bugs. It turns out good security is the prerequisite for containers.

[Marlock]

Why do you need to boot to win11 just to play Solitaire?

Why not use WINE to run that game in linux instead?