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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Are there any discrepancies between the resources an OS uses when running in a virtual machine vs being ran directly? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by vortexal@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I recently found out about a Linux Distro named Q4OS and I wanted to test out their claim that it only requires 256 MB of ram when using the trinity desktop environment. However, when I used the live cd in virt-manager with 256 MB or ram, it just kernel panicked at boot. So I then tried it with 512 MB of ram. In addition to some issues that are not present when you are using at least 1 GB of ram, such as "sudo apt update" causing the entire VM to become unresponsive, I noticed that it seemed to actually use anywhere between 290 MB to 370 MB of ram when the only thing running was the process viewer (which is htop).

Obviously, this is still very low for a modern Linux distro but I was wondering how accurate VMs are for testing ram usage.

And, yes I know that it would be pretty much useless on a PC that only had 256 MB of ram even if it did work. I'm actually checking the ram usage because there is a possibility that I may be using a very old computer of mine that only has 1 GB of ram at some point in the future. So I'm just testing it and eventually other distros out to to see which one I'm going to end up using (assuming I do actually end up even using that computer).

Edit: I just tried the 32-bit version in virt-manager and htop stated it was only using 232 MB of ram, which means that their claim was right and that I might have been using the wrong version.

Edit 2: I just tried installing the 64-bit version in virt-manager and htop stated that it was using about 350 MB of ram, so I don't know if installing it actually made a difference.

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[+] warmaster@lemmy.world -7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I use Bazzite, AFAIK Steam OS runs inside a container, the performance is amazing. I've read the same thing from people who do VFIO GPU passthrough to a Windows VM. If you use kernel based virtualization, there should be no difference.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Containers aren't virtualization.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What do you mean?

[–] meteokr@community.adiquaints.moe 11 points 7 months ago

Docker, e.g. containers, are actually a process isolation system similar but not exactly the same as a chroot if you are familiar with that. It's an isolation of resources, but not so hardware isolated like a full fat VM. For example, adding a GPU to a VM requires handing over the full PCIe hardware interface, with one interface per VM. Where as containers can just bind mount the device files in /dev and multiple containers can share the same GPU hardware. Containers aren't virtualizating anything, just isolating processes from each other in a standardized way.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

A container is just an environment where it appears to any program running within it that it has full access to the computer, while in reality it's "jailed" and isolated from the rest of the system. The OS resources are shared with the container, instead of the hardware resources as in a virtual machine. There's no hardware being emulated. It's a beefed up version of a chroot.

[–] Rustmilian@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

SteamOS doesn't run inside a container, it's just an immutable image based system.