VM Challenge - Linux Image with Nvidia GPU Passthrough

[NOLA_DireWolff]

I've spent a few hundred on hardware, a good 30+ hours on troubleshooting and reloading this VM over and over with various configurations and iterations.  I've tried installing headers, installing legacy and modern Nvidia drivers and changing config files.  My linux knowledge is limited, but I'm good at research and variable based testing to solve problems.  

 

I'm stumped. 

 

I would bet that some of you would enjoy hifi bitperfect audio via HDMI out of your Unraid machine.  What could I be missing?  Would you be interested in helping to get this running stable as a VM?  What does it take to turn it into a docker that we can share?  This is called "open source"  does that mean everything we would need to make a docker container for it lives in git?  https://github.com/volumio

 

I'm using the latest 007 image from here - https://forum.volumio.org/volumio-x86-debian-buster-debugging-party-beta-t13957.html

I could not get it working with the stable release - that one is still on Debian Jessie and has very old kernel files - maybe it can work and I just don't understand?  https://volumio.org/get-started/

 

With some cards I have video, some I don't.  Not all will boot, I can't successfully install Nvidia drivers in that Debian build - the build doesn't automatically find the proper audio device, ever.  It is easy to say "thats because the build is not done well", the kernel is old, or other excuses.  I'm looking for a real solution, not to blame.  This has been a bit of a personal challenge, but I feel like I'm reaching the end of my linux experience.

 

I'm definitely game to research, help test and further assist the development of this.  I've posted in the reddit VM forums, a bit here in Unraid and a lot in the official Volumio forums.  They are not interested in working on VMs, yet, so I'm on my own.  

Thanks for your consideration

[JonathanM]

I'm a little confused by your post. I, and many others, use VM's with nvidia passthrough to run our home theater setups, and maybe I just don't know what I'm listening for, but my hdmi output seems to be perfectly fine both audio and video. I have the hdmi output straight into the hdmi main input of my Onkyo HT-RC560, and it outputs clean audio in multiple configurations from stereo to 5.1 surround, depending on source files. I routinely play FLAC and other high quality source material, and it's every bit as good to my ears as CDs or DVD's.

 

What audio issues are you running in to?

 

As far as trying to do the same thing in a container, that's not even remotely the same level of solved. Maybe someone has managed it, but I'm not aware of the specifics on getting that going. At the very least it would require an nvidia card that was fully supported by the LSIO nvidia Unraid modification, and even then I'm not aware of anyone passing through anything but the GPU encoding / decoding to a container, directly accessing the hdmi output may be doable, but I haven't seen anyone try.

[NOLA_DireWolff]

@jonathanm

 

I'm sorry if it was confusing.  I've been working on this since November.  I'm not the ask for help first type....

 

Volumio is a custom Debian image.  It is a great piece of software.  They offer it as a .img file for running on dedicated hardware and small processors such as Rpi and others.  They offer an x86 version, but it is intended to boot from flash and be the only thing running.

 

I have Nvidia GPU passthrough working on my windows VM in my unraid machine - it works spendidly.  No issues.  Both of my currently installed video cards pass through perfectly.  

 

When I'm gaming on my Windows VM - HDMI video + audio + surround sound is perfect!

 

*Neither one passes through to the Volumio OS well*

Some cards are no video, some are no audio, none have audio devices that are auto discovered by the Volumio OS.  I have to edit config files, they don't just run and it doesn't persist past shutdown.  Normal users don't have this issue.

 

I could buy their hardware, or a rpi or go the easy route - but I wish to teach this Unraid box new tricks.  Unraid is awesome - (its me that needs the new tricks).

 

I want to run the volumio x86 image as a VM in my unraid machine and passthrough my weaker video card to be a HDMI audio output from my unraid machine. 

*I have not been able to figure out why I can't do this*  Likely it has to do with the intent and focus of the Volumio developers - real hardware - and I don't fault them for that at all.  I want to overcome that hurdle, help myself, help Volumio and help other unraid users who might want the same sort of little VM.  This software offers a bit perfect player, internet radio, streaming, room sync and a great web UI interface.

 

Their image DOES boot perfectly as a VM with VNC as the primary display.  I just can't get it to boot and run well with a video card as the primary display and the HDMI as the audio output.  

 

The questions:

1 - Can the VM be loaded and modified via Nvidia driver install (I cant successfully pull this off) or other internal tweaks?

2 - I have tried all of the OVMF/seaBIOS/Q35/i440 variations - some of them cause different results but none of them work.  Does this mean I'm missing a key setup for VM to a custom Debian Buster?

3 - I know very little about docker - would this run better as a docker container based on their git source?  Is that possible?

 

After months of headache, hardware purchases (I have 4 different chipset video cards now  : /  ) and various Linux experiments I'm hoping one of our resident geniuses has a bright idea

Possibly you... or @SpaceInvaderOne 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by NOLA_DireWolff

[testdasi]

Just thinking out side of the box, I remember on the other topic you said your GT710 works fine in a Windows VM.

Volumeio github (https://github.com/volumio/Volumio2) says it has VirtualBox / VMWare VM image pre-built.

Perhaps you can attempt a nested virtualisation?

E.g. install VMWare Workstation Player on a Windows VM and try to make the VMWare VM image work?

[NOLA_DireWolff]

@ testdasi I'll add that to my experiments list   Thank you for the idea.  

 

I finished more reading today about the way the xml can be setup to plug devices into the guest PCIe bus in different manners/topology.  I'll report back if I find any good solutions or have a new clue.

[scorcho99]

I don't know much about Volumino (never heard of it before now) but it sounds like its debian based.

 

I run GTX950 and GTX1060 3GB cards in linux mint 18 VMs for my HTPC/Couch gaming VM and they run fine. They are seabios 440bx based VMs. For sound, I needed to use the MSI fix (its similar to the one used for Windows) otherwise the audio was garbled and the VM ran awful but otherwise I didn't do anything special.