graphic card on domU

graphic card on domU

[Abe]

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hello everybody,

is it possible to run a paravirtualized linux (domU) that its graphic card
is working directly with hardware? what about the peripherals?
mouse,keyboard,usb?
how can this be accomplished if domain0 does not hold of a graphic card
driver?
thanks,
Abe.

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Re: graphic card on domU

[Emre Erenoglu]

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Hi Abe,

I'm not a developer. Nevertheless, as far as I know, using a graphic
hardware with 3d functionalities etc. is not possible at the moment. PCI
device hiding functionality of Xen 2.0 does not yet work for Xen 3.0,
therefore you cannot reach the graphics hardware directly from a Xen DomU.

To have X in DomUs, there may be several solutions:
1) HVM Guests: They already have a graphics card emulation. Low resolution,
slow.
2) PV Guests: You can configure a FrameBuffer for the DomUs and use SDL or
VNC to view it from Dom0.
3) For any type of guest, you can run another X server in your Dom0, and use
this one over TCP/IP for your DomUs (i use XDMCP). It is not that slow. You
can even watch movies. I didn't yet try running Compiz Beryl etc.

Best regards,

Emre


On 3/15/07, Abe <lynchbay@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hello everybody,
>
> is it possible to run a paravirtualized linux (domU) that its graphic card
> is working directly with hardware? what about the peripherals?
> mouse,keyboard,usb?
> how can this be accomplished if domain0 does not hold of a graphic card
> driver?
> thanks,
> Abe.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
>
>


-- 
Emre Erenoglu
erenoglu@gmail.com
emre.erenoglu@erenoglu.com

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Re: graphic card on domU

[Mark Williamson]

> Hi Abe,
>
> I'm not a developer. Nevertheless, as far as I know, using a graphic
> hardware with 3d functionalities etc. is not possible at the moment. PCI
> device hiding functionality of Xen 2.0 does not yet work for Xen 3.0,
> therefore you cannot reach the graphics hardware directly from a Xen DomU.

Actually the PCI device hiding does now work on Xen 3.0 so you could assign a 
graphics card to a domU.  I think people may have done this successfully 
although I'm not sure how functional they managed to make the resulting 
system; X.org used to get a little unhappy and confused when run in a domU 
even with access to the graphics card.  Maybe this is better now.

Giving PCI devices to HVM isn't possible (at least not until suitable IOMMU 
support is available - both a hardware and software problem).

> 1) HVM Guests: They already have a graphics card emulation. Low resolution,
> slow.
> 2) PV Guests: You can configure a FrameBuffer for the DomUs and use SDL or
> VNC to view it from Dom0.
> 3) For any type of guest, you can run another X server in your Dom0, and
> use this one over TCP/IP for your DomUs (i use XDMCP). It is not that slow.
> You can even watch movies. I didn't yet try running Compiz Beryl etc.

I wouldn't expect compiz / beryl to work well if forwarded from another 
machine (or even from a domU), although I'd be interested to discover if you 
*can*.

Or SSH to the guest and use X protocol forwarding - works very well and 
integrates well with your dom0 desktop.  Or use NX (NoMachine X) to forward a 
desktop with sound, storage and print services (if you can get it to work!).

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

Re: graphic card on domU

[Emre Erenoglu]

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Hi,

I don't have a second PCI graphics card so I won't be able to try it. But
just a question, when we say PCI, is it also applicable for AGP (guess this
is also PCI) and PCI-E?

In my setup, I'm using pulseaudio for sound and samba for file sharing. NFS
may also be used.

How is performance when watching a movie over X forwaded by SSH?

Emre


On 3/16/07, Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > Hi Abe,
> >
> > I'm not a developer. Nevertheless, as far as I know, using a graphic
> > hardware with 3d functionalities etc. is not possible at the moment. PCI
> > device hiding functionality of Xen 2.0 does not yet work for Xen 3.0,
> > therefore you cannot reach the graphics hardware directly from a Xen
> DomU.
>
> Actually the PCI device hiding does now work on Xen 3.0 so you could
> assign a
> graphics card to a domU.  I think people may have done this successfully
> although I'm not sure how functional they managed to make the resulting
> system; X.org used to get a little unhappy and confused when run in a domU
> even with access to the graphics card.  Maybe this is better now.
>
> Giving PCI devices to HVM isn't possible (at least not until suitable
> IOMMU
> support is available - both a hardware and software problem).
>
> > 1) HVM Guests: They already have a graphics card emulation. Low
> resolution,
> > slow.
> > 2) PV Guests: You can configure a FrameBuffer for the DomUs and use SDL
> or
> > VNC to view it from Dom0.
> > 3) For any type of guest, you can run another X server in your Dom0, and
> > use this one over TCP/IP for your DomUs (i use XDMCP). It is not that
> slow.
> > You can even watch movies. I didn't yet try running Compiz Beryl etc.
>
> I wouldn't expect compiz / beryl to work well if forwarded from another
> machine (or even from a domU), although I'd be interested to discover if
> you
> *can*.
>
> Or SSH to the guest and use X protocol forwarding - works very well and
> integrates well with your dom0 desktop.  Or use NX (NoMachine X) to
> forward a
> desktop with sound, storage and print services (if you can get it to
> work!).
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
> --
> Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
> Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
> Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
> Mark: My wheel has a wheel!
>



-- 
Emre Erenoglu
erenoglu@gmail.com
emre.erenoglu@erenoglu.com

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RE: graphic card on domU

[Petersson, Mats]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> Emre Erenoglu
> Sent: 16 March 2007 15:45
> To: Mark Williamson
> Cc: xen-devel@lists.xensource.com; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] graphic card on domU
> 
> Hi,
>  
> I don't have a second PCI graphics card so I won't be able to 
> try it. But just a question, when we say PCI, is it also 
> applicable for AGP (guess this is also PCI) and PCI-E?

Yes, all "flavours" of PCI are software compatible: PCI, PCI-x,
AGP(1,2,8x) and PCI-E. It's just changes in hardware architecture (and
some extended register sets for PCI-E, but if you don't particuarly care
about PCI-E performance counting, or some other rather special things,
the software don't need to know about those to function correctly). 

--
Mats