Round 2, fight!

This has been a journey that has taken me a long time, since mid 2021 to 2022... It's still not entirely perfect, but it's very much near native... And although I've changed hardware so much on this project; I settled in on the list below. With Ubuntu 22.04 as host.

So... I wanted to up my game and go full tilt with VFIO. I tried the mainstream route with the 3700x and AM4, but I wanted to spare no expense when it came to both my rig and performance. Enter Threadripper...

Host Hardware (Q4 2022):
-Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB (Ubuntu 22.04 Linux)
-XFX 6800 XT is the Host (Linux) GPU.
-Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS MASTER EATX MOBO
-G.Skill 4x32GB DDR4-3600 CL18 RAM

Windows Guest Passthrough:
-32GB Allocated to the VM.
-Onboard Intel GiB NIC
-Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3060 TI
-PCIe USB card (for native USB plug-n-play)
-NVME Samsung 980 Pro 2TB - Passthrough

Software:
-Ubuntu 22.04 Linux
-VFIO (Virtual Function I/O, Native built-in)
-KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine, built-in to the Linux Kernel)
-QEMU (Open-source Hypervisor, CLI)
-Libvirt (Open Source API to manage hypervisors, like QEMU, VMWare, etc...)
-Virt-Manager (GUI Application to manage all the above software pieces.)

After my fiasco with both Manjaro and Fedora, I decided to go with an old friend, Ubuntu... I followed a lot of guides for multiple Linux Distros, but I found the best thus far to be:
https://mathiashueber.com/passthrough-windows-11-vm-ubuntu-22-04/

In that guide, I found a lot of helpful tricks and tips and the biggest I think was setting up huge pages. However, the biggest and most performative tip I found, was not in the guide, but rather in the name.... performance!

In games on the 3700x build, I noticed these little stutters and clips in the frames. In games like Rust, when mining nodes, frames would drop, causing me screen tearing. Even with nvidia settings set to g-sync, I still would get tearing. In my research on the new HEDT build dubbed "Zenith II" I delved deeper into the Linux side of tuning. There is where I found a few key tricks.

In my BIOS I overclocked the 3960x to a stable 4.1GHz, and set PBO to optimized, and thus, frame rates improved drastically. The 3060 TI was a better option in this build, games like Rust saw more stable frame rate. However, still saw some tearing, and so, my research continued. Until I came across the CPU governor settings within Linux. Here, setting my CPU governor setting to "performance" (echo "performance" | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor), the screen tearing almost completely disapeared... Gaming was finally achieved and I started using the rig as my daily driver. And as I upgraded and tuned even more settings. Success was now within reach, round 2, the opponent VFIO is now is 1 'n 1... I have  eventually achieved my "Sorksation".

Now, onto the final version, 3 systems, 1 Sorkstation....

Hello all,

This will be a multipart series of  love, fantastic suspense, tear filled and headache filled journey into the wonder of VFIO gaming. Yes some hearts were broken, yes I've aged 10 fold in the 2 years of starting this journey, and Yes... Oh so very much yes.... It's.... STILL... NOT... OVER!!!!

...Well... Now with that out of the way... Let's start with why I began this journey... Well... Much like everyone else who gets into VFIO, I wanted to run multiple systems with near 0 performance impact on the VM. Plus, I was heavily inspired by Linux Tech Tips "7 Gamer's, 1 CPU" series, but I didn't have a $100,000 system. So I had to start a bit smaller...

Round 1! FIGHT!

I started out using my first proper PC build in almost a decade. My current desktop at the time was an old custom with I think a Intel i5 4650? Not sure, but it ran DDR3 1600MT/s RAM and an 2.5 SSD. Played games "OK". But was time for a upgrade. So I splurged on some new, fancy AMD Ryzen hardware I've heard about, and got to work. Below is the basics of what I remember from the build.

Host Hardware (Q3 2020):‌‌
- Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB (Arch "Manjaro Linux)"‌‌
-GTX 780 is the Host (Linux) GPU.‌‌
-AMD Ryzen 3700x (8 Core, 16 Threads)
-Asus Prime x570-p MOBO‌‌
-G.Skill 2x32GB DDR4-3600 CL18 RAM

Windows Guest Passthrough:‌
‌-32GB Allocated to the VM.‌‌
-Onboard Intel GiB NIC‌‌
-Nvidia GTX 1080 Turbo
-PCIe USB card (for native USB plug-n-play)‌‌
-NVME Samsung Evo 1TB - Passthrough

Software:‌‌
-Started out with Manjaro Linux, then Fedora 34
-VFIO (Virtual Function I/O, Native built-in)‌‌
-KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine, built-in to the Linux Kernel)‌‌
-QEMU (Open-source Hypervisor, CLI)‌
‌-Libvirt (Open Source API to manage hypervisors, like QEMU, VMWare, etc...)‌‌
-Virt-Manager (GUI Application to manage all the above software pieces.)

This started out rather nicely, however, as this was my first try at the new thing, I fumbled a great deal... Like, it was not fun... First of all, the mobo I bought only had 1 full x16 PCIe slot, with the only other slot being x4. So... Umm... Yeah, Great success!!! (lol, no, actually great failure, with fireworks...).

The next thing to fail was since I ran Manjaro, I feared for my life at ever update/upgrade... And it bit me in the boot drive... I ran "pacman -Syyu" and let the fun start... Reboot... and oh look, Nvidia Drivers not found, the WDM could not find the drivers. Turns out ( I found this out much later), that because I black listed the nouveau drivers, the WDM could not load... But, hey at this point I moved on... Changed out the Mobo for a Asus Prime x570-Pro, with proper Bifurcation support and 2 full size x16 (x8/x8) slots, and moved onto Fedora 34, following Wendel's Level1Tech's post here: Fedora 33: Ultimiate VFIO Guide for 2020/2021 [WIP] - Wikis & How-to Guides - Level1Techs Forums
Had much better success, but alas, failure once more... Same issue with nouveau drivers and the WM...

So with round 1 with the opponent VFIO, was over and it's 1 'n 0... But this has been a great journey that has taken me a long time and I've learned a great deal, and I really can't say it's been all bad. In the coming posts within this series, I will eventually have my "Sorksation". It's still not entirely perfect, but it's very much near native... And although it's had ever changing hardware, I very much can't wait for the next aspect... getting the thing to work in Ubuntu 22.04!

Update: Round 2-3 were won!!!

At this stage of the home lab, everything was pretty much the same as the last post, except I introduced the first enterprise grade server (which, sadly, I can't find a photo of), but it was a Dell PowerEdge 2950, with L5XXX Intel CPU's (2x 4Cores, 8 Threads, for a total of 8 Cores, 16 threads.), with 32 GB of DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz... But I got introduced to the Dell Perc i Raid controller... Yay!!! Yes, I was a proper home laber now....

But alas, I still had most things running on the i7 960 rig, as it was much faster, and really only ran the 2950 in the winter, with the window open. XD It was not fun running that, but I got it for free and I got to play with it for a bit, before I retired it for good a few years later. I liked it as it was proper enterprise gear and I could say, a proper server. But it was around this time that I got into Minecraft game hosting and well... You see where this is going...

It was around this time, I started to get serious when it came to my home lab, I started to get and more into Proxmox, and started to do proper sysadmin stuff... Like Back-ups and restores after an botched update... Oh, it was an adventure...

Whilst I don't have a photo of the 2950 in the rack as it was short lived. It didn't change the photo above much. The i7 machine was still the primary server in the rack. It was not until I bought a Dell R710, that I got into "Real", server admin stuff. It was also around this time, 2019, that I got a job as a System Administrator and was using the 710 as a full dev, home lab... but that is a story for the next installment of this series... So stay tuned... Cheers!

In the previous post, I described how I got into home Labing, my start on old desktop hardware, using open source tools and software to it all. Well, this post will a evolution of that phase, with the addition of a server rack, rack mount cases and rack mounted equipment. Still the same hardware, mind you, just now in a proper rack setting.

The adventure in proper "home labing" continues with the introduction of "The Rack". The Rack was the to be the central location for all core networking, services and IT, in general. But now, with a Dell PowerConnect 2724 Gigbit switch and "proper" rack mountable case for the "Server". Now when I say "server" in quotes like that, it basically means... I put a computer that serves up services in a rack mount cases... That thing at the bottom, that's a "Server" with a Dell Optiplex 32bit Pfsense box running on top.

Now, as far as what that "server" was running, I honestly don't remember. Most likely it was Proxmox, with a few VM, like Zentyal, perhaps a samba file server, I don't remember at this point in time. I do remember that it was the most powerful system I'd built up to that time. It had a rocking Core i7 960, 16GB of DDR3 1600MHz RAM and a HDD I don't remember... It was a baller or a machine.... Course, my current prod servers dwarf that in all aspects, but I did spend quite a bit more on those... XD...

All and all, this was the true start of my production ready home lab.... Little did I know what I was in store for... Speaking of which... Next up (a little taste), my first true introduction to enterprise grade gear... A.K.A... The space heater...

Hello all, this will be the start of a series I'm dubbing "Adventures in Home Labbing". It will be focused on my home lab journey, from my humble pc/gaming/NAS, to my current, proper (with enterprise grade) servers and hardware... We all start some where, and my journey was no different. So come along for the ride! :)  

So, after college (perhaps a little whilst still attending), I started my journal in network management. I started to get interested in web hosting, and web design in general. Thus, I started to play with my old computer, a dinky old Dell Optiplex something-or-other... Running a Pentium 4 with HT (Yeah, baby, virtual threads), with 4GB's of RAM and a 250GB HDD... I started running Ubuntu 9.10 or perhaps it was 10.04, I honestly don't remember... But I do remember that I really enjoyed the whole process of setting everything up and opening my web browser and entering my website for the time... that was a thrill... Fast forward a few years and bam! My first official, "proper" home lab was born...

Fast forward a few years and you'll see my first "Production" home lab in the making (Image above for scale. lol). It was the first time I had servers to work with (albeit still desktop hardware, but running as servers). It was about at this time I started getting into virtualisation and hypervisors and such. So I landed on Proxmox, with Pfsense as my firewall/router. A couple of VM's running services, Zentyal for Active Directory, Samba, and DNS tasks, with... Crap I honestly don't remember what else at this time. A Minecraft server I suppose, but really don't remember much else. This was just my transistion period to the hobby of home labbing... It's start was subtle, but it got it's hooks in me...

Hello all!

Aaron here, first post, well... First real post... I did do an intro, or rather an "About the Author" sort, but this post is the first REAL post... And as such... it's a good one... I got a new toy... A went in on the Framework laptop... And I flipping love it... I'll go into the deets of the hardware, the experience, and challenges and overall view on the device.

Who is Framework and why is their Laptop a bid deal?
I'm not going to go to much into this as their are far better and more in depth publications that have written about Framework and their Laptop... Most notably, the likes of Linus Tech Tips, iFixit and Level1Techs. So, basically, Framework, the company is a startup that is trying to...

"Fix Consumer Electronics"

And so... basically, their first product is a modular laptop, that is completely up-gradable with almost everything (except the mainboard) being replaceable or repairable... Not only that, they strive to make a slim and attractive product. I for one, really hope they succeed!

So... Why'd I buy the Frameworks laptop?:
So I guess why I bought the Framework laptop is because I'm passionate tech nerd... It's the same reason why I buy anything techy related... Plus I rather needed a laptop to replace my very trusty, but very aged Lenovo Thinkpad T440... Which has served me very well, but with a 4th gen i5... and 8GB's of Ram... it just can't run certain tasks I need of it...

The laptop...
The Framwork laptop is a very modern, very powerful and very slim machine... It has all the features of a modern ultra book, but can be completely disassembled into pieces, yet still maintains it's strong frame...
It's powered by either the 11th gen Intel Core i5 1135G7 or either of the Intel Core i7 1165G7 or 1185G7 CPU's, with up to 64GB's of RAM and a PCIe Gen 4  M.2 NVME SSD. It's quite powerful as I said.

It's also one of the most configurable machines I've ever had. The i/o is based on USB4 (with Thunderbolt unofficially Supported.) and comes with 4 ports, a 3.5 "Courage" Jack (Headphones), But the really cool part are those USB4 ports... You can choose what adapters or external ports you'd like them to be. In my configuration, I choose to go with a USB Type C, Type A, 2x DP, 1x HDMI and 1 x 1TB expansion card with USB C. So far, see no issues, as you can add more docks or hubs, etc to further expand the I/O.

The challanges of a new toy...
The laptop is rather easy to use once you get to know the thing. The only real challenge I came across thus far with the Framework Laptop was to install Kubuntu 21.04. In order to do so, you have to disable Secure Boot, in order to disable Secure Boot, you have to get into the BIOS, and that's where I had to do my first google search on the device (Press F2 at boot up... ;) )... but, it was really easy and Framework's has A LOT of documentation on how to use the laptop and get things like this done. It's part of their goal... And that is part of why I bought the laptop...

I like that for once a OEM PC hardware company is putting things out in the open, not behind a subscription paywall or having to pry it out of the sale engineer's cold, dead hands... In fact, they even publish the schematics for the design online and help hobbists and tinker's who wish to build 3-d printed expansion slots out by explaining things and coaching them along the way. I love it!

Closing thoughts on the device and experiences:
Thus far, I absolutely love the thing... Aside from the fact that I had to wait for the laptop to ship in mid-September, the over-all experience has been great, 10/10 would buy again. That's another thing I can't wait for, is the second gen or revision of the device. They have plans for a Ryzen edition, I think, I hope! That would save on battery life... But overall I fully support Framework and their endeavor's... I really do!

Well, that's all for now...

Cheer's all, talk to you on my next post!  

The Virtual Host - is a place where everything tech culminates and blooms. It's where most I, will write about my current and recent projects, these can relate from my personal setups, to a cool Open Source project I found and decided try out or, if I'm feeling spicy... A project that I started to work on and release... Everything tech is open, everything open is right...

"Live for today, dream of tomorrow... and keep on coding..."

~ Aaron...