unRAID Community,

 

I currently use Arch Linux exclusively for my gaming, programming, work, and general computer needs. While most of my games are native to Linux, wine has been instrumental in ensuring I'm able to play any non-native games that I consider worth the effort. I've decided to move my non-native gaming needs to KVM and studied many guides toward that end. While I'm certain I could figure out how to make that all work the way I want, the prospect of paying for convenience appeals to me here.

 

My goal is to have Arch Linux up on both of my monitors with full access to my GTX 980 Ti for gaming. When I launch Windows for a non-native game, I'd like it to take the graphics card and one monitor while Arch Linux switches to on-board graphics and the other monitor. I don't mind switching inputs manually on the monitor at that time, but I should have some way of using both systems in this state. If additional hardware is required to make this work, I'm fine with that. Will unRAID allow me to do all of this more easily?

 

Here is a full part list of my new system for reference.

MB: Gigabyte Z170X-UD5

CPU: Intel i7-6700K

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2400MHz

SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB

HDD: Western Digital Black Edition 3TB

PSU: EVGA 750W Bronze

Case: Fractal Design Define R5

CPU Cooler: Corsair H90

 

 

Thank you for your time,

Sinazok

Are you saying you want to have each graphics card output a different os ?, if so i believe you need to have a graphics card for each vm. onboard graphics needs to be allocated to the server for the motherboard to boot... however don't quote me on that, its just what i've seen in my case

I should be able to have unRAID and Arch Linux sharing the same kernel with chroot, something I've done in the past when working with two distributions. Unless, of course, Docker functions in a similar way. Picking up a relatively inexpensive GTX 950 as a second graphics card is always an option if those options don't allow me to use on-board graphics though.

 

I'm mostly concerned with being able to use both Arch Linux and Windows simultaneously without having to reboot Arch Linux in order for Windows to steal the graphics card when it starts up.

Are you saying you want to have each graphics card output a different os ?, if so i believe you need to have a graphics card for each vm. onboard graphics needs to be allocated to the server for the motherboard to boot... however don't quote me on that, its just what i've seen in my case

Quoted! 

UnRAID doesn't require a video card to  boot, however some MB's will require it.

As for using onboard, no, it is not officially supported and most do not work for pass-through to a VM.

However what you propose with 2 discrete GPU's is very much possible.

You will need to shut one down to switch the GPU to another, however this is certainly possible and works very well (as long as you have a GPU that performs well with doing virtualization).

For a no frills non gaming GPU I have had complete success with the Nvidia GT720, there are some others with issues that I am unsure of why, however I have 3 of them, 2 different brands, tested on 3 different motherboards with zero issues.

I'm mostly concerned with being able to use both Arch Linux and Windows simultaneously without having to reboot Arch Linux in order for Windows to steal the graphics card when it starts up.

 

I haven't attempted this, but also didn't know this is how you want it to perform.

For this part I am unsure, as I don't have the need and would have to try to confirm/deny.

I should be able to have unRAID and Arch Linux sharing the same kernel with chroot, something I've done in the past when working with two distributions...

Even if you could figure out how, I don't think you want to do this. unRAID must be running all the time in order to maintain parity.

When i first set up unraid it defaulted to the video card once i switched it to onboard the graphics card was free for vm output, if you have a second card give it a shot you can use the same card for 2 vms just not at the same time

Even if you could figure out how, I don't think you want to do this. unRAID must be running all the time in order to maintain parity.

 

I don't actually need the parity functionality of unRAID on this machine. All of my important files are stored on or copied to my dedicated server. I'm not so sure unRAID would be able to passthrough the GPU to a VM if it wasn't the host in a shared kernel situation anyway, so unRAID would be running all the time.

 

When i first set up unraid it defaulted to the video card once i switched it to onboard the graphics card was free for vm output, if you have a second card give it a shot you can use the same card for 2 vms just not at the same time

 

Did switching unRAID to on-board require a reboot?

Yes

The tricky part here is your graphic card, same as mine, would like an answer too on is it possible to passthrough this.

For what you want to do with arch, you will simply disable one output using xrandr, your gtx will not be used by arch though, otherwise you will have to reboot arch like stated above.