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[vmspinner]

Hello VM Gurus, I have been trying to run ESXi 4.0 update 1 in my new machine (Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H-v2.0, Phenom II X5 1055T, 4gb Kingston Hyperx PC2000, WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200rpm); and the ESXi 4 install just wouldn't move after the step - loading USB module.

Is there anyway to make ESXi work on AMD Phenom II X6 / AM3 motherboards having USB 3.0?

I wish there was a free barebone hypervisor for desktop purpose where you could access VM OS thru hypervisor console.

I am trying to build a mini tower with VMs for the purpose of -

1> Personal computing,

2> DVR (tv tuner) & Media Center

3> NAS

4> few VMs for IT Development using windows and linux flavors like ubuntu and fedora.

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks.

[weinstein5]

It might not be the motherboard - check out vm-help.com a great website that is usefule in getting unsupported hardware working with vSphere -

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[asatoran]

I am trying to build a mini tower with VMs for the purpose of -

2> DVR (tv tuner) & Media Center

No solution to your install issue, but just an FYI on creating a virtual DVR. ESX doesn't support USB directly. The normal recommendation is to use a USB-over-IP adapter. However, the throughput of many of those adapters may not be enough to keep up with the video stream. So you'd have to try to configure an internal TV tuner through VMDirectPath. It's likely that your tuner is not on the compatibility list. (I don't recall seeing any TV tuner or video input cards on the list yet, and likely not for a while, if ever.) So you'll have to experiment. But don't hold your hopes up. Even with hosted virtualization (e.g.: VMware Workstation) and a USB2 tuner, I've gotten only limited success with DVR in a virtual machine. I still get a lot of skipping of frames or sound out of sync. The virtual machine can't always keep up.) ESX may be better, if you can get a PCI(e) TV tuner to work.

Also, video playback is not optimal in ESX. If you can get the DVR to work, then you'd probably want to view the recordings elsewhere rather than directly from the vSphere client (e.g; xBox Media Center Extender.) Non-video playback is probably ok, although ESX's support for sound cards is non-existant, so again listen to music or view pictures from the extender or whatever other PC rather than from the cSphere client.

So the rest of your goals are fine. Just the DVR is a bit bleeding edge for virtualization at the moment.

[vmspinner]

Hi asatoran, thank you for your note.

For the DVR purpose, I was under impression of not having any use of USB. I plan to use a PCI dual TV tuner card that will be

used in an Win 7 VM instance to record the video in the RAID 1 kept behind one NAS server (Windows Home Server).

Do you still foresee the problem in that instance?

But all of those are my goals, first step is to have luck in installing ESXi successfully on my gigabyte GA-890gpa-ud3h motherboard / 1055T phenom II.

Thanks

[weinstein5]

I agree first issue is getting ESXi installed but once you do you will still not be able to use the tuner card because I will bet ESXi will not be able to access the card and present virtually to the VM -

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[vmspinner]

Well, it sounds like I need to rethink my option of this hypervisor.

Is ESXi 4 U1 the right candidate for my project? If not, do you all recommend me any proven free desktop barebone hypervisor?

Thanks

[asatoran]

..If not, do you all recommend me any proven free desktop barebone hypervisor?

You'll have better luck with VMware Player 3. (Or VMware Workstation 7, which is not free, but does include Player 3, which is free.) Workstation & player do support sound in a virtual machine and have improved video performance. I have experimented virtualizing Windows XP Media Center Edition & Media Center in Vista and Windows 7 in VMware Workstation 6 & 7 and Player 2 & 3. XP-MCE fails due to insufficient video RAM. (Needs 256MB vRAM.) Vista & Win7 Media Center will install, but still can't use PCI(e) tuner cards. You can use USB tuners with Workstation/Player, but throughput varies depending on your hardware. The USB tuners I had mostly worked for recording (I still had a intermittent frame drops when recording TV within the virtual machine) but as I said in my previous post, playback of video within the virtual machine is sometimes not acceptable so you may have to view the recordings on some other PC or use a Media Center Extender.

Due to performance issues, what you'll likely end up having to do is have the DVR/Media Center functions non-virtualized on the host PC. Then run virtual machines withing VMWare Workstation or Player. Note that depending on how powerful your physical host machine is, you might not be able to record TV while running virtual machines. My current Win7 machine is a Intel i35 motherboard, Q9400 2.66GHz CPU, 8GB DDR2 800MHz RAM, SATA2 3Gb 160GB 7200RPM drive, and I will get intermittent frame drops and out of sync audio if I run certain virtual machines while recording TV. Basically, TV is a continuous stream and doesn't handle interruptions well.

IMHO, if you are going to use the machine as a DVR a lot, then dedicate a machine to be a DVR. My personal setup is one older Dell Precision 340 with dual tuners as my DVR, two Media Center Extenders for viewing in the main viewing rooms, and a Windows 7 PC (without a tuner) that I've configured the "libraries" to be folders on the DVR. This Win7 PC is where I run my virtual machines. It used to have the tuners in this Win7 PC until I moved them to the Dell 340. Even though the Dell is only a P4 2GHz, I don't have any frame drops or audio sync issues. But the Dell does nothing else except be a DVR.

[asatoran]

For the DVR purpose, I was under impression of not having any use of USB. I plan to use a PCI dual TV tuner card that will be

used in an Win 7 VM instance to record the video in the RAID 1 kept behind one NAS server (Windows Home Server).

Do you still foresee the problem in that instance?

Prior to ESX4, in general, ESXdidn't really use any hardware directly. Some SCSI device passthrough, but you couldn't use any specialized cards like TV tuners. ESX4 gives VMDirectPath so you have a possibility of using a card directly. But ESX is currently geared toward backend servers. Thus the lack of support for sound cards or (relatively) high performance video. So if you're lucky, then the TV card will work in ESX. Where you'll next likely run in to problems is that Windows Media Center needs a sound card and a minimum level of video performance even to be initially configured. If it doesn't pass, then you won't be able to use Media Center at all. So you'll need both the TV tuner and the sound card to work with VMDirectPath. Even less likely that your built-in sound will work with VMDirectPath, so that means experimenting with a PCI sound card. (An extra expense if you don't have one lying around or didn't order your system with a PCI(e) sound card...and that may not work with VMDirectPath anyway.)

If you have all the equipment, then go ahead and try. Nothing to lose. Even if you don't have the sound card, try anyway. Not many people know if it will actually work since it is so bleeding edge. (If anyone has even tried it at all. Who knows, you may be the first with Win7 and the first with whatever model of TV card you have. :smileywink: And if you do have success, report your results to vm-help as this type of project has been asked and tried many times in the past so you know that there are people interested.)