Messing around
by rufwoof from LinuxQuestions.org on (#6FR9Y)
Old under-powered laptop 3GB RAM, slow HDD. OpenBSD 7.4. Ethernet hard wired.
Desktop i5, 8GB, nvidia, SSD. Fatdog (Linux) with kvm/qemu 40GB virtual HDD with OpenBSD 7.4 installed. Also ethernet hard wired. Using qemu with -vnc :1 qemu boot switch ... and the keyboard wasn't great, back delete, and other annoyances, so instead I installed tigervnc into the OpenBSD qemu and run vncserver :3 within that. OpenBSD ports 22 (ssh) and 5903 (vncserver :3) are mapped to the Fatdog (Linux) hosts ports 222 and 15903.
From the laptop I set up ssh -N user@fatdog -L 5903:localhost:15903 tunnel, so I can vncviewer localhost:5903 from the laptop ... to drop into the qemu OpenBSD session on the Fatdog box. Within that, forwarding sound to the laptop and when I view youtubes on the laptop via
AUDIODEVICE=snd@laptopIP/0 firefox-esr
(as firefox supports sndiod) they play reasonably well. Some misalignment with lip-sync when viewing someone talking at the camera, but very marginal/small difference.
On the Linux box I made a sfs of that 40GB vHDD, that shrunk down to a 3.5GB file size, that as a alternative 'no changes saved' boot of the qemu OpenBSD system I mount and qemu boot a snapshot. That runs as equally as well, so the 40GB vHDD is void, other than being required to reboot and make any changes that you want to persist and reform the .sfs file from that modified version.
All on a family home network, where I disabled all firewalls for concept testing (main home firewall/hub firewall still active), but consider it a keeper, so will reinstate the firewalls and drill the required port holes. I want to further experiment with adding sshfs into that setup so the qemu OpenBSD has folder(s) that appear as folders on the laptop filesystem for easier file sharing.
A nice feature is that you can disconnect and later reattach, re-entering where you left off, and the Fatdog linux system still runs as normal, can be used as a desktop, perhaps chrome playing a youtube, whilst the laptop firefox also playing a youtube .... and all of the sound is independent, no one system locking others out of the sound system.
Fundamentally the laptop system could be any low end hardware, provided OpenBSD can be installed then its just handling vnc screens being passed to it along with sound. And where operationally its usable, loads firefox and web pages quickly, that you can scroll up/down through comfortably, and where youtubes play OK albeit not perfectly (as per the lip sync issue I mentioned earlier). And resolves the issue of having different browsers/sounds all playing at the same time (main desktop (Fatdog) system doesn't even 'see/notice' the other qemu system running other than a bit more cpu being used, is all otherwise transparent/hidden (shared family desktop with a more Windows like desktop (tray/menu/desktop icons etc)).
I have the laptop attached via HDMI to a larger monitor that I set as the vncviewer screen (F8, full screen) whilst the smaller laptop display I leave as pure OpenBSD, a default of a full screen xclock and where I can open a terminal and run sndioctl output.level=0.66 type sound adjustments .. or whatever.
Attached Thumbnails
Desktop i5, 8GB, nvidia, SSD. Fatdog (Linux) with kvm/qemu 40GB virtual HDD with OpenBSD 7.4 installed. Also ethernet hard wired. Using qemu with -vnc :1 qemu boot switch ... and the keyboard wasn't great, back delete, and other annoyances, so instead I installed tigervnc into the OpenBSD qemu and run vncserver :3 within that. OpenBSD ports 22 (ssh) and 5903 (vncserver :3) are mapped to the Fatdog (Linux) hosts ports 222 and 15903.
From the laptop I set up ssh -N user@fatdog -L 5903:localhost:15903 tunnel, so I can vncviewer localhost:5903 from the laptop ... to drop into the qemu OpenBSD session on the Fatdog box. Within that, forwarding sound to the laptop and when I view youtubes on the laptop via
AUDIODEVICE=snd@laptopIP/0 firefox-esr
(as firefox supports sndiod) they play reasonably well. Some misalignment with lip-sync when viewing someone talking at the camera, but very marginal/small difference.
On the Linux box I made a sfs of that 40GB vHDD, that shrunk down to a 3.5GB file size, that as a alternative 'no changes saved' boot of the qemu OpenBSD system I mount and qemu boot a snapshot. That runs as equally as well, so the 40GB vHDD is void, other than being required to reboot and make any changes that you want to persist and reform the .sfs file from that modified version.
All on a family home network, where I disabled all firewalls for concept testing (main home firewall/hub firewall still active), but consider it a keeper, so will reinstate the firewalls and drill the required port holes. I want to further experiment with adding sshfs into that setup so the qemu OpenBSD has folder(s) that appear as folders on the laptop filesystem for easier file sharing.
A nice feature is that you can disconnect and later reattach, re-entering where you left off, and the Fatdog linux system still runs as normal, can be used as a desktop, perhaps chrome playing a youtube, whilst the laptop firefox also playing a youtube .... and all of the sound is independent, no one system locking others out of the sound system.
Fundamentally the laptop system could be any low end hardware, provided OpenBSD can be installed then its just handling vnc screens being passed to it along with sound. And where operationally its usable, loads firefox and web pages quickly, that you can scroll up/down through comfortably, and where youtubes play OK albeit not perfectly (as per the lip sync issue I mentioned earlier). And resolves the issue of having different browsers/sounds all playing at the same time (main desktop (Fatdog) system doesn't even 'see/notice' the other qemu system running other than a bit more cpu being used, is all otherwise transparent/hidden (shared family desktop with a more Windows like desktop (tray/menu/desktop icons etc)).
I have the laptop attached via HDMI to a larger monitor that I set as the vncviewer screen (F8, full screen) whilst the smaller laptop display I leave as pure OpenBSD, a default of a full screen xclock and where I can open a terminal and run sndioctl output.level=0.66 type sound adjustments .. or whatever.
Attached Thumbnails