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Quoting: tonRSo GoL users... what's our opinions on this? For me, I think 8GB RAM on Linux are nearly to it's limit but still enough for at least 1-2 years...

I think the sweet spot is somewhere around 12 GB, but such configurations are neither common, nor well supported by hardware.

However I don't think you would see much difference by upgrading from 8 GB to 16 GB right now, unless you are constantly multitasking while gaming. 8 GB RAM and 4 GB of swap on a reasonably fast SSD is often good enough in my experience. Enabling zswap (add zswap.enabled=1 to kernel parameters) may reduce the actual swap usage while still being able to free RAM for active applications.

Quoting: WorMzyI use chroots rather than VMs, but my 32GB RAM is usually mostly used for compiling software too (mostly because I run the chroots on tmpfs).

Quoting: ShmerlI'd say 16 GB is a norm today, to be able to run most games comfortably. I personally like building stuff in different VMs.

Speaking about VM, how/where should i start?

I am seriously want to upgrade or buy a new PC this year but as modern CPU no longer supports Win XP, I'm kinda 50:50.

I want to learn about VM because most old school phones' for PC software backup such as Sony Ericsson PC Suite/PC Companion, Nokia PC Suite/Link and Samsung Kies (for non-Android) runs stably on Win XP.

Hope y'all or anyone please give some advice.. Thanks guys..

Quoting: tonRSpeaking about VM, how/where should i start?

I am seriously want to upgrade or buy a new PC this year but as modern CPU no longer supports Win XP, I'm kinda 50:50.

I want to learn about VM because most old school phones' for PC software backup such as Sony Ericsson PC Suite/PC Companion, Nokia PC Suite/Link and Samsung Kies (for non-Android) runs stably on Win XP.

Hope y'all or anyone please give some advice.. Thanks guys..

I prefer to use Qemu/KVM + libvirt for that purpose. virt-manager is a good GUI solution for it.

Figuring out stuff though can take time, but it's worth it.

See: https://virt-manager.org

Start with installing virt-manager, it usually pulls qemu and kvm related packages already. The basic functions in the UI are pretty straightforward, and there are various tutorials and tips on more complex ones, which you can find around the net.

You can use local user qemu session first, to avoid more complex system level qemu session (virt manager provides a choice which session to connect to). Make sure your user also belongs to libvirt and kvm groups:

sudo usermod -a -G libvirt,kvm your_user


Last edited by Shmerl on 5 April 2019 at 2:04 am UTC

I use GNOME Boxes when I need a VM. I don't use VMs very often though, but I think that for a first start, it's a very simple and intuitive GUI (in just 5 or 6 clicks, you're done).

Quoting: ShmerlI prefer to use Qemu/KVM + libvirt for that purpose. virt-manager is a good GUI solution for it.

Figuring out stuff though can take time, but it's worth it.

See: https://virt-manager.org

Start with installing virt-manager, it usually pulls qemu and kvm related packages already. The basic functions in the UI are pretty straightforward, and there are various tutorials and tips on more complex ones, which you can find around the net.

You can use local user qemu session first, to avoid more complex system level qemu session (virt manager provides a choice which session to connect to). Make sure your user also belongs to libvirt and kvm groups:

sudo usermod -a -G libvirt,kvm your_user

Quoting: CreakI use GNOME Boxes when I need a VM. I don't use VMs very often though, but I think that for a first start, it's a very simple and intuitive GUI (in just 5 or 6 clicks, you're done).

Thank Shmerl and Creak, I certainly will taking a loong time to figuring it out. I will try/experiment it on my old empty HDD.

I hesitated to try WM because based on reading news and etc., is most VM softwares are paid/subscription software. So my thought/perception that VM needs to be pirated.

Certainly, I'm kinda noob on VM but I will trying out virt-manager and GNOME boxes (or any suggestion y'all gave me).

There are closed commercial VM solutions, but there are great open source ones as well, so no need to pirate anything :)


Last edited by Shmerl on 5 April 2019 at 2:25 am UTC

If you don't need accelerated graphics inside the VM, VirtualBox should provide what you need as open source, and it's easy to use.

The downside of VirtualBox - their USB passthrough is not open source, and it's very messy. Qemu/KVM works a lot better.