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Creating a Windows 10 kvm VM on the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X using VGA Passthrough

Last updated: January 6, 2022

Introduction

I’ve already written a detailed tutorial on Windows 10 kvm VGA passthrough based on QEMU version 2.11. Years have passed and recent distributions like Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 20, or Manjaro come with QEMU 4.0, 4.2 or 5.1.

A lot has happened since version 2.11. QEMU 4.0 includes numerous changes and improvements such as trim support in the virtio-blk driver, pcie-root-port with PCIe 4.0 support (with Q35-4.0 machine type), as well as improved audio.

Upgrade to Linux Mint 19 (Ubuntu 18.04)

I recently upgraded from Linux Mint 18.3 to the latest version, Linux Mint 19. I did this so I could test and eventually update my VGA passthrough tutorial. There was no other practical reason for me to upgrade.

I did the upgrade twice:

Using the mintupgrade tool provided by Linux Mint. This allowed me to upgrade my existing Linux Mint installation and all installed applications.
The upgrade went surprisingly smooth, with only minor glitches. However, in the end I decided to reinstall the Linux Mint 19 system from scratch (see 2. below).
Install the entire operating system from the downloaded ISO, while preserving the /home director (my user directory) and all other data.
This was quite a pain in the neck, as it turned out.

Linux Security Part 2

I already wrote about why I think Linux is the way to go, and why I consider Linux more secure than most commercial operating systems. But what if your favorite distribution gets hacked?

Exactly this happened a little more than a year ago, when the Linux Mint website – probably the most popular Linux distribution – got hacked. The hacker placed a backdoored version of the Linux Mint ISO onto the download page. The perpetrator was also successful in hacking into the forum and stealing all user data and passwords. The user data / passwords are still available for purchase on the dark net, anyone paying the requested amount can download it.

Today, a year later, the Linux Mint forum and community websites are down. In the meantime the site has come up – according to a admin note it was shutdown for maintenance.

Why Linux

Most computer users are familiar with Microsoft Windows, some with Apple OS X. But what about Linux?

Linux has become popular as a server OS, but couldn’t win any desktop battle, yet. One of the reasons for Linux’ failure in the desktop market is its fragmentation. There is no Linux operating system, but dozens of different (competing) distributions, as these different flavors of Linux are called. “You got lots of choices” would the Linux aficionado explain.

While the software landscape under Linux has greatly improved, Microsoft is still the king when it comes to commercial software. And the fact that the vast majority of desktops run Windows practically guarantees that hardware will be compatible with Windows, which is not always true for Linux.

So why on earth should a Microsoft Windows user bother with Linux?

Running Windows 10 on Linux using KVM with VGA Passthrough

This tutorial explains how to install and run Windows 10 on Linux using GPU passthrough and VFIO drivers to achieve near-native performance – for gaming, photo or video editing, and other graphics and CPU intensive tasks. It also lists the common pitfalls and possible ways to further improve performance. Last not least it offers a comprehensive list of external resources and helpful links.

Latest update: November 25, 2023

The Need

You want to use Linux as your main operating system, but still need Windows for certain applications unavailable under Linux. You need top notch (3D) graphics performance under Windows for computer games, photo or video editing, etc. And you do not want to dual-boot into Linux or Windows. In that case read on.

Many modern CPUs have built-in features that improve the performance of virtual machines (VM), up to the point where virtualised systems are indistinguishable from non-virtualised systems. This allows us to create virtual machines on a Linux host platform without compromising performance of the (Windows) guest system.

For some benchmarks of my current system, see Windows 10 Virtual Machine Benchmarks Continue reading “Running Windows 10 on Linux using KVM with VGA Passthrough”