Add Virtualization-Support into ISO Live-System by default?

Tombula · March 28, 2020, 11:30pm

Many people boot up the installation ISO within virtual machines to try out their potential new system. Therefore various systems come with the VirtualBox Guest Additions package installed by default

Do you think it could be useful to also add support for virtual machines into the installation ISO of EndeavourOS? I am thinking about optimized support for popular virtualization software like VirtualBox or QEMU.

For VirtualBox: virtualbox-guest-x11 , virtualbox-guest-utils and virtualbox-guest-dkms packages
For QEMU: spice-vdagent

Just an idea - maybe this is completely nonsense… What do you guys think?

freebird54 · March 29, 2020, 2:12am

My first thought on that is “More work for the Welcome program”. I think it might well be a good idea to add in those things, provided it is trivial (ie: easy) to get rid of them in alternate scenarios. For those of us on bare metal, is is not a required item for sure.

I speak not as much of a Virtualbox user - about all my install does is run old Windows - but extending the easy reach might be worthwhile. Just keep in mind that most prospective users out there are aware that ARCH is pretty much do-it-yourself in nature, and should expect not to have everything conceivable already there - other distros have that handled!

Now for the comment about slippery slopes… naw - never mind.

Freebird54

joekamprad · March 29, 2020, 8:01am

Support for VirtualBox is already included in the ISO.
The next release will also support VMware.
Qemu does not need any special services or packages installed onto the ISO to work.

github.com

endeavouros-team/EndeavourOS-archiso/blob/96ff6335a17dbb6e07afff18be6138d446b1f493/airootfs/root/customize_airootfs.sh#L48


chmod 755 /etc

sed -i 's/#\(PermitRootLogin \).\+/\1yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sed -i "s/#Server/Server/g" /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
sed -i 's/#\(Storage=\)auto/\1volatile/' /etc/systemd/journald.conf

sed -i 's/#\(HandleSuspendKey=\)suspend/\1ignore/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf
sed -i 's/#\(HandleHibernateKey=\)hibernate/\1ignore/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf
sed -i 's/#\(HandleLidSwitch=\)suspend/\1ignore/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service vboxservice.service
systemctl set-default multi-user.target

github.com

endeavouros-team/EndeavourOS-archiso/blob/96ff6335a17dbb6e07afff18be6138d446b1f493/packages.x86_64#L349


libopenraw
freetype2
gst-libav
gst-plugins-bad
gst-plugins-ugly
gpart

# AUR-support 
yay

#virtualbox.packages
virtualbox-guest-modules-arch
virtualbox-guest-utils

#screen tearing at ISO
xcompmgr

# theme.xfce4.endeavouros
endeavouros-theming
arc-x-icons-theme
capitaine-cursors

Tombula · March 29, 2020, 9:23am

Thank you for your answers!

Oh, I am sorry for this missexplanation! I wanted to ask if it could make sense to add VM-support into the ISO live-system itself, so it would perform better when getting booted in VMs.

I think eos-welcome program should be not influenced by that, no? The VM-support would just improve the live system performance, but not affecting the integrated installer.

Sure, that is completely right! But nevertheless, the spice-vdagent package provides strong improvements in regard to lagging graphics performance, smoothened mouse pointer movements, drag & drop, moving the mouse pointer out of the VM and use it on the host machine without any issues (and vice-versa), etc. All in all, a lot of very useful improvements.

freebird54 · March 29, 2020, 9:43am

Maybe misexplanation, maybe misapprehension on this end. Just because I don’t know what I’m talking about all the time, doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion!

In this case, misunderstood, AND knew nothing. Just trying to help keep things simple - if only I knew enough about what simple was. Maybe I should take the batteries out of the keyboard for a day…

Freebird54