KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

[Evert]

Hi all,

I am about to install a new host system, which will be hosting various 
guest systems by means of KVM & virt-manager for GUI.

What would be the best choice for host OS distro? Red Hat, or will any 
mature Linux distro do?
Personally I am more of a Gentoo guy, but if there is 1 distro which is 
clearly better as host OS when it comes to KVM+virt-manager, I am 
willing to use something else...  ;-)


Regards,
	Evert

Re: KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

Evert schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am about to install a new host system, which will be hosting various 
> guest systems by means of KVM & virt-manager for GUI.
> 
> What would be the best choice for host OS distro? Red Hat, or will any 
> mature Linux distro do?
> Personally I am more of a Gentoo guy, but if there is 1 distro which is 
> clearly better as host OS when it comes to KVM+virt-manager, I am 
> willing to use something else...  ;-)

Did you try this one:

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page

It's Debian based and have everything you need for virtualisation 
already prepared.

-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org

Re: KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

[Evert]

Tomasz Chmielewski wrote:
> Evert schrieb:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am about to install a new host system, which will be hosting various 
>> guest systems by means of KVM & virt-manager for GUI.
>>
>> What would be the best choice for host OS distro? Red Hat, or will any 
>> mature Linux distro do?
>> Personally I am more of a Gentoo guy, but if there is 1 distro which 
>> is clearly better as host OS when it comes to KVM+virt-manager, I am 
>> willing to use something else...  ;-)
> 
> Did you try this one:
> 
> http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page
> 
> It's Debian based and have everything you need for virtualisation 
> already prepared.
> 

To my knowledge Proxmox does not support software RAID ( 
http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/kvm-83-released-support-amd-iommu-qemu-svn-merge 
), unless you configure that manually...
Otherwise Proxmox is promising, yes...

Can I conclude from that that Debian is the best host distro to go for? 
Better than Red Hat & Gentoo?


Regards,
   Evert

Re: KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

[Bill Davidsen]

Evert wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am about to install a new host system, which will be hosting various 
> guest systems by means of KVM & virt-manager for GUI.
> 
> What would be the best choice for host OS distro? Red Hat, or will any 
> mature Linux distro do?
> Personally I am more of a Gentoo guy, but if there is 1 distro which is 
> clearly better as host OS when it comes to KVM+virt-manager, I am 
> willing to use something else...  ;-)
> 
Fedora supports KVM and virt-manager nicely. I can't say it's the best, only 
that it works solidly.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

Re: KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

[Charles Duffy]

Evert wrote:
> Can I conclude from that that Debian is the best host distro to go for? 
> Better than Red Hat & Gentoo?

I'm not really convinced there's a big enough difference that it matters 
-- particularly on a production system where you intend to stick to 
stable, well-tested software. That said, many of the bleeding-edge tools 
coming out of Red Hat's Emerging Technologies group (such as libguestfs) 
are developed principally for Fedora; if you're looking to live on the 
edge, that might be the way to go.

Ubuntu also has their own virtualization group; if you want something 
where your distributor makes an effort to keep maintained packages 
available (and accept that this means that they'll lag behind latest 
upstream a bit), it's not a bad place to be either.