Hacker News Reader

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes.

> there is virtually zero overhead in using VM nowadays

Not for real-time audio production. The state of audio plugins having Linux support from vendors like EastWest, Spitfire, Native Instruments, iZotope is abysmal and even Wine does not run them nowadays.

Even with a virtual machine that has pinned cores and USB pass-through of a dedicated audio interface, it practically locks you to one sample rate, any change causes crackles, try to load more than one plugin and you hear crackles. There is plenty of overhead.

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes, there are still use cases for it.

The state of GPU virtualisation, for example, is a spectrum from doesn't exist/sucks to only affordable for enterprise customers.

So unless you have a second graphics card to do pass through with, if you want to use your GPU under both OSes then you almost always have to dual boot (yes, there are other options like running Linux headless, but it's not even remotely easier to set up than dual boot)

Most mainboards comes with an integrated gpu though? If you use that one for the host OS, it is easy to pass the discrete through no?

Consumer motherboards haven't had gpus for a while now (IPMI usually comes with one, so servers do), they're built in to the CPU (if they are, not all cpus have them). These can't usually be easily allocated to a vm.

I clicked randomly on a number of motherboards sold by the 2 brands that came to my mind, Asrock and Gigabyte, and all of them advertised hdmi and usb-c graphics output so I am surprised by your declaration that consumer motherboards don't have GPU. If I am not mistaken on AMD Ryzen architecture it comes down to choosing a CPU with a G or 3D suffix which states they have an integrated GPU.

It really still is the case that most if not all consumer motherboards don’t have built in graphics. For the most part especially on the intel side, they’ve relied on the iGPU in the CPU for output for probably 10 years now

Well my case still stand that you still have an integrated graphics, if not by the motherboard but the GPU, that you can use on the host while you dedicate a discrete card for VM passthrough.

Desktop Ryzen 4's and newer have a very small iGPU that's just enough to put up a desktop (and presumably a framebuffer fast enough to feed a discrete card's output into)

He's saying the opposite: Host has integrated graphics, VM has dedicated GPU.

How can the host have integrated graphics, if integrated graphics don't exist?

Per, Korhojoa, and my personal experience plenty of desktop CPUs simply don't have integrated GPUs. Consumer mainboards simply don't come with them at all. Consider my previous workstation CPU, top of the line a few years ago and no iGPU: https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/50...

Integrated GPUs is a feature of server mainboards so that there is something to display with for troubleshooting, but not on any retail mainboards I am aware of. It is a feature of some consumer grade GPUs designed for either budget or low-power gaming. It simply doesn't exist on all CPUs, consider the AMD 5600, 5600x and 5600g, last gen mid-range CPUs adequate for gaming and the x had a little more clock speed, and the g had an iGPU.

Most AM5 CPUs have integrated graphics. It's also quite common on Intel.

> and the g had an iGPU.

So you are contradicting yourself.

This is a fundamentally dishonest take. I provided three specific CPUs that varied by just the letter at the end where some had an iGPU and some didn't. I am being honest that some have it but that it isn't ubiquitous.

Well when you buy a desktop computer in 2024 their are usually 4 main ways:

- buying a ready made computer from a brand --> always come with an integrated GPU. Some will be even such a small form factor you have to use an external thunderbolt connected GPU if you want to use one.

- you build your computer yourself from parts --> you decide your motherboard and CPU, if VM passthrough is something you want to do, you just buy the parts that fits your use case

- you buy a configurable prebuilt computer from an online or local vendor --> you just have to choose the right option on the configuration tool so that you get a motherboard/cpu that offers integrated GPU.

- you buy second hand and you don't have an igpu: you buy the cheapest gpu available, usually around 10 to 25$ and you have your second GPU that the host can use.

Even when you are using laptop, having 2 GPUs is really not complicated in 2024, especially with thunderbolt external GPU cases/adapters.

Bottom line: you only have one GPU if you actively choose not to have 2.

The average PC is already a trade of that costs the average user around $800 and near 2/3 would need a substantial RAM upgrade a new GPU or both to make gaming through VM passthrough a reality. Most people aren't looking to buy new hardware and learn new tech to game.

It sounds like a useful toy for those whom already enjoy playing with their computer as much as playing with the game.

That said wouldn't limiting the host to integrated graphics (or whatever you get for $25) be a substantial limitation compared to using wine/proton or dual booting?

> Most people aren't looking to buy new hardware and learn new tech to game.

Most people don't play game.

Most people that play game that isn't solitary or a web game just buy a playstation, xbox or Switch.

Only a relatively small fraction of people playing AAA games use computer for that. The most hardcore one and the most willing to spend money on a game Rig. And I am pretty sure most of them aren't the least interested in dual boot because they would have a desktop gaming rig and a laptop for everything else anyway. Only a tiny fraction of gamers is probably interested in dual booting. You are part of that tiny group. Fine. The nmbl tool presented in this conference do not prevent dual booting anyway so I am not even sure why people act like they should be offended because grub might be replaced someday by something else with more capabilities.

Only a tiny portion of people are interested in Linux in the first place. Of those it seems like around 25% dual boot.

https://linux-hardware.org/?view=os_dual_boot_win

It doesn't make sense to ex post facto try to justify what people SHOULD do when we can look at what in fact they actually do.

The idea that the only people that play PC games are ONLY play AAA games on their souped up rigs is also a counterfactual. People play games everything from 8 year old laptops to $5000 custom built rigs with RGB everything. You are oversimplifying the universe consists of many and varied irrational individuals not spherical cows.

Dual booting is simple and suitable for nearly 100% of machines running Linux.

Wine/Proton is suitable for nearly 100% of machines running Linux. Steam has reduces this complexity to a few clicks for the majority of titles.

GPU passthrough is unsuitable for 70-80% of configurations and by dint of complexity undesirable for nearly everyone which is why virtually nobody does this.

> Wine/Proton is suitable for nearly 100% of machines running Linux. Steam has reduces this complexity to a few clicks for the majority of titles.

Why would one dual boot if games work so well?

Because people don't want to play "games" they oft want to play a particular game and if it doesn't work it doesn't work. Also consider how many people are new and they have an existing computer with Windows the standard play is to dual boot first and then possibly transition to only Linux if it works well enough for usage.

Approximately half of gaming revenue is from PC customers. It wavers up and down depending on exactly what metric you want to use and when the last console refresh was.

You are correct on the complexity cost and how most people, even those with nice gaming computers, just don't want to deal with more complexity than needed. Even mandating a store app that works causes a significant hit to conversion rates. EA couldn't give away Dead Space a previously successful AAA title when bundled with their store.

> Approximately half of gaming revenue is from PC customers

Whales.

You are thinking of pay to win games with microtransactions. Whereas this trash HAS come to the PC platform there is no reason to believe it represents any substantial portion of the revenue in PC gaming.

I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, but most people base it on something. You are free to do whatever you're doing, but I hope no one takes you seriously.

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

One of the big problems is with the graphics cards, because the vendors block a driver functionality ( SR-IOV ) for consumer GPUs that would allow single GPU passthrough for VMs.

The alternative is to leave the system headless (reboot needed, and the VM need to run as root), or to use two graphics cards (wasting power, hardware resources, etc.), for which you also need to add an extra delay layer inside the VM for to re-send the graphics back to the screen, or to connect two wire inputs to the monitor.

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes. I work on Linux and play most games on Windows. Playing games on a VM is... pretty terrible.

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024

Seems the answer is yes. https://linux-hardware.org/?view=os_dual_boot_win

> there is virtually zero overhead in using VM nowadays

It might be more accurate to say that if you have a fast computer with lots of resources the experience running a basic desktop experience feels perceptibly native. This means it is a great answer to running windows software that neither needs a discrete GPU nor direct access to hardware on the minority of machines that are capable enough for this to be comfortable.

In actuality laptops are more common than desktops and the majority of computers have 8GB of RAM or less. 60% all form factors 66% laptops. This just isn't enough to comfortably run both.

https://linux-hardware.org/?view=memory_size&formfactor=all

Furthermore while most Linux users are comfortable installing and running windows and Linux whereas they may or may not be familiar with virtualization.

Also probably the number one reason someone might dual boot is probably still gaming which although light years ahead of years prior still doesn't have 100% compatibility with Windows. In theory GPU passthrough is an option but in reality this is a complicated niche configuration unsuitable for the majority of use cases. Anyone who isn't happy with steam/proton/wine is probably more apt to dual boot rather than virtualize.

Yes, people dual boot. Particularly people who are contemplating a move from Windows. I'd hate to see Linux take the "my way or the highway" attitude of Windows.

My experience when I had a dual boot in the late 90's was that rebooting is such an interruption that you never become fully comfortable on one of the OS. You just stick to the OS you are used to and never really do the switch.

While if don't dual boot you can switch completely to another OS and only use VM or remote desktop for the handful of use cases when you aren't ready yet (and then end ip abandoning them completely as well).

I don't think you got the point.

The experience of using a VM is not good, that's exactly why people are doing dual boot. They know what they are doing.

> the late 90's was that rebooting is such an interruption that you never become fully comfortable on one of the OS

Keep in mind that booting takes a tiny fraction of the time today that it did in the 90s.

Regardless if it takes 20 seconds or 2 minutes it is still an interruption.

Hilariously, the windows boot manager supports dual booting as well. So one can use it instead of grub to dual boot.

I dual-boot on my personal desktop. I mostly use Debian, but there's a Windows partition for games and a few other Windows-specific things. The GPU in it was way too expensive to justify buying two, and I use it under Linux for ML, hash-cracking, etc.

My original plan was to do everything in a Windows VM, but there was too much of a performance hit for some of my purposes, and VMWare doesn't allow attaching physical disks or non-encrypted VMDKs to a Windows 11 VM, so it's actually easier to have a data drive that's accessible from both OSes with dual boot than it would be with a VM.[1] I'm still disappointed about that.

[1] Using HGFS to map a host path through to the VM is not an option because of how slow that is, especially when accessing large numbers of files.