Stable and efficient Linux for a virtualized environment?
by FrederikSchack from LinuxQuestions.org on (#52BSH)
I've been running Windows Server 2012R2 on a small energy efficient computer with a 120 GB SSD and Atom J1900 (with VT-x), with up to 10 virtual computers on HyperX. I only do this for my personal stuff, never was admin anywhere. I used it for FTP, file server, OpenHAB, as a desktop on my phone via Teamviewer and many other things.
I would like to do somewhat the same on Linux and also set up some level of cloud computing.
I just came across Clear Linux a few days ago, which seemed like a perfect fit and supposedly stable and efficient. As I've been trying Linux a few times over the years, I was expecting challenges, but was hoping that things had improved.
The installation process of Clear Linux 32850 appears to be full of known and unknown random bugs, plus a lack of userfriendliness. I don't know how the system is running, because I wasn't even able to get to a functional installation.
I have Qubes installed on a laptop and I would consider it a very smooth installation process, compared to Clear Linux, but I don't think I would like to use it for a virtualized server.
So the core I would like to get to is if there's anything Linux, that can provide me with an efficient virtualized environment, that's stable and not mind-warping to install and maintain? Probably something with KVM and virtmanager. I want it to run on the same small computer as Server 2012R2, as it has an extremely low power consumption.
I do expect that the difficulty level to be a lot higher than Windows Server, but I don't want to struggle just to get the basics to work at all.
Nice to have would be if there's a solution to use the SSD as a read/write cache for a bigger physical drive, that could maintain everything commonly used and thus rarely spin up the physical drive.


I would like to do somewhat the same on Linux and also set up some level of cloud computing.
I just came across Clear Linux a few days ago, which seemed like a perfect fit and supposedly stable and efficient. As I've been trying Linux a few times over the years, I was expecting challenges, but was hoping that things had improved.
The installation process of Clear Linux 32850 appears to be full of known and unknown random bugs, plus a lack of userfriendliness. I don't know how the system is running, because I wasn't even able to get to a functional installation.
I have Qubes installed on a laptop and I would consider it a very smooth installation process, compared to Clear Linux, but I don't think I would like to use it for a virtualized server.
So the core I would like to get to is if there's anything Linux, that can provide me with an efficient virtualized environment, that's stable and not mind-warping to install and maintain? Probably something with KVM and virtmanager. I want it to run on the same small computer as Server 2012R2, as it has an extremely low power consumption.
I do expect that the difficulty level to be a lot higher than Windows Server, but I don't want to struggle just to get the basics to work at all.
Nice to have would be if there's a solution to use the SSD as a read/write cache for a bigger physical drive, that could maintain everything commonly used and thus rarely spin up the physical drive.