Experience installing SolidWorks on a Windows 7 virtual machine on a Ubuntu host OS
Under Linux, it’s probably impossible to find a full-fledged professional CAD system. Somehow it happened, not because of the GPL-license, or because of some other circumstances, that Dassault Systèmes writes so much-respected in Russia SolidWorks and CATIA under Windows. As a result, all or almost all design bureaus (design offices) working in these CADs are tied to it.
I do not have one on the computer that lives the zoo of any software. For some it was necessary to turn on the Windows debugging mode. Something was not cleared from the registry with all the efforts. Something was dragging behind itself services that started when the OS started. In general, the idea has long been spinning to bring order to everything in this with the help of virtualization. Put the hypervisor, run themed virtual machines from it, which already run all these capricious, but so necessary for the feeling of full life, algorithmic creatures that will not be able to bite their way to the host OS and other virtual machines, having spoiled everything at once. In addition, there are such free and, judging by the reviews, quite good hypervisors, like VirtualBox. And since everything works on virtual machines, the host OS may be Linux, which will not be so easy to break through a virus attack, for which there is a sea of free software and which, for other reasons, is more attractive than Windows. Everything seems to be slim, beautiful, logical.
And then there was a reason to do it. Since some time I am a lover of laptops. They can work in any conditions - and sitting in the office, and sitting on the couch, but at least in the woods. Combine entertainment with hobbies. Somehow, another advertising virus has penetrated through Firefox, Casper (purchased and regularly updated, by the way), and settled somewhere in the vastness of the Windows system directories. For the first time, I decided to rearrange it on my already-old Sony VAIO.
But bad luck, the sonevsky drivers turned out to be so whimsical that they had to be installed in a strictly defined order. Otherwise there were a lot of chances that some simply would not work. But I found out about this already after I rearranged Windows, installed native drivers, and began to google on the topic of why everything worked, and the ethernet adapter did not. I did not want to rearrange Windows and appease the drivers, putting them in a certain order.
')
So, hello Linux! What exactly? After some reflection, having experience with CentOS and Solaris (which, of course, not Linux, but UNIX), stopped at Ubuntu. They promised a lot of goodies, although this is a bit unusual Linux branch of Debian.
Ubuntu is installed so simply that it is not even worth mentioning. Any software in the repositories is full. But, as already mentioned, there is no Solidworks, and even remotely something similar to it.
I installed Virtualbox, Windows on it, Solidworks on it. I tried. The installation of Solid ‑ under the guest Windows worked, by the way, not quickly, frankly slowly. Anyway, but Solidworks refused to work. I read the comments and it turned out that nobody works under Virtualbox Solid. It is necessary, for example, VMWare.
Well, the first additional paid-proprietary product. Master it. Fortunately, that is set and updated without problems. A virtual machine was created, Solid got up under it ... and even earned it! But somehow not fast. It turned out there are a lot of nuances. Tuning is everything.
The first. Configuring virtual machine resources is a rather delicate matter. By virtualku gave exactly half the physical memory - 3 out of 6 gig. No more, no less.
The second. With a 4x-core processor Intel Core i3 put the number of processors on a virtual machine 4 pieces. Half cores multiplied by 2 turns. Having given half the computing resources to the virtual machine, it seems to have achieved the balance of computing power - neither the host nor the guest OS slows down.
In general, for several months of life in Ubuntu, I have never encountered a shortage of physical RAM (which I have 6 Gig on the laptop), but often I come across a 100% processor load. Periodically, something tries to take all the time the processor. Here, when updating Ubunt to version 15.10, he recklessly agreed to enable real-time support. Comp earned slowly. It turned out that because of some kind of bugs in the kernel, the kworker processes can absorb 80% of the CPU time, it’s not clear what. The blessing is treated simply:
sudo rmmod intel_powerclamp
I must note that in the Russian-speaking Internet Ubunt is very well supported. It is quite easy and quick to find a solution to problems arising both when increasing your own requests and when updating key software. For example, in the course of its research, VMWare upgraded from version 11 to version 12. After the update, it did not want to run. But a quick Google search gave a solution to this problem.
Of the strange nezhdanchikov need to note the behavior of Windows as a guest OS. Specifically, Windows 7, with which I work, since it is my official and purchased. Something is wrong with the update. Everyone knows that Windows wants to upgrade frequently and a lot. But so that when you “turn off the computer” for such a long time to update ... Particularly large updates took up to several hours. However, if the update is forced to launch from the control panel, then it passes regularly and quite quickly.
With Windows update is another nuance. We start guest Windows. Barely moving. We look at the process manager, the processes of all users. Download 100%, the process TrustedInstaller seeks to load the processor to the eyeballs. Google, and it turns out that this is the process of updating Windows, well, and even there in small details ... it does not allow anyone to write to the system directories. When you try to stop it starts again. It stops permanently by disabling automatic updating of Windows. Well, okay, we will ban.
I also had to install the NVIDIA native driver for the graphics adapter from the Ubuntu repository, because there was a suspicion that the driver that came up when the OS was installed was not quite correct. The suspicion was justified, the messages “No 3D support is available from the host” and “Hardware graphics acceleration is not avalable” disappeared when the virtual machines started.
The virtual machine requires, as a rule, from 20 gigabytes of hard disk space. Therefore, on a small HDD laptop, full of everything, there are a lot of virtual loops, as I had expected before all these experiments were started, in fact, you will not install.
I described the main problems that I encountered when installing what I absolutely needed for running Solidworks on a VMWare virtual machine when working in the Ubuntu host OS. In general, having picked it up for a couple of months with this and having a good tune, I think that the solution is quite workable. And comfortable. True, I have not opened the assembly of 3D-models of large machines for hundreds of parts. I do not know how such a software hierarchy will digest them. But with them and the Core i5 with 8 Gig of memory is not to say that smartly copes.
Now I, working in a virtual machine, do not see the difference with working on a normal, normally-built physical computer. When running (just running) Solid, Word and Firefox, the System Inaction process takes 95% of CPU time. The top utility from the Ubunt console says that vmware-vmx occupies 70% of the CPU time and 54% of the memory. That is, quite comfortable.
In parallel, I created a second virtual machine for software and controller development. CocoxIDE on another virtual machine saw the STM32 debug board, but I also did not really program it. Ahead are experiments with the rather whimsical ArtCAM program, which is very popular among CNC machines, as well as practical work with STM32 through CocoxIDE.
I do not have one on the computer that lives the zoo of any software. For some it was necessary to turn on the Windows debugging mode. Something was not cleared from the registry with all the efforts. Something was dragging behind itself services that started when the OS started. In general, the idea has long been spinning to bring order to everything in this with the help of virtualization. Put the hypervisor, run themed virtual machines from it, which already run all these capricious, but so necessary for the feeling of full life, algorithmic creatures that will not be able to bite their way to the host OS and other virtual machines, having spoiled everything at once. In addition, there are such free and, judging by the reviews, quite good hypervisors, like VirtualBox. And since everything works on virtual machines, the host OS may be Linux, which will not be so easy to break through a virus attack, for which there is a sea of free software and which, for other reasons, is more attractive than Windows. Everything seems to be slim, beautiful, logical.
And then there was a reason to do it. Since some time I am a lover of laptops. They can work in any conditions - and sitting in the office, and sitting on the couch, but at least in the woods. Combine entertainment with hobbies. Somehow, another advertising virus has penetrated through Firefox, Casper (purchased and regularly updated, by the way), and settled somewhere in the vastness of the Windows system directories. For the first time, I decided to rearrange it on my already-old Sony VAIO.
But bad luck, the sonevsky drivers turned out to be so whimsical that they had to be installed in a strictly defined order. Otherwise there were a lot of chances that some simply would not work. But I found out about this already after I rearranged Windows, installed native drivers, and began to google on the topic of why everything worked, and the ethernet adapter did not. I did not want to rearrange Windows and appease the drivers, putting them in a certain order.
')
So, hello Linux! What exactly? After some reflection, having experience with CentOS and Solaris (which, of course, not Linux, but UNIX), stopped at Ubuntu. They promised a lot of goodies, although this is a bit unusual Linux branch of Debian.
Ubuntu is installed so simply that it is not even worth mentioning. Any software in the repositories is full. But, as already mentioned, there is no Solidworks, and even remotely something similar to it.
I installed Virtualbox, Windows on it, Solidworks on it. I tried. The installation of Solid ‑ under the guest Windows worked, by the way, not quickly, frankly slowly. Anyway, but Solidworks refused to work. I read the comments and it turned out that nobody works under Virtualbox Solid. It is necessary, for example, VMWare.
Well, the first additional paid-proprietary product. Master it. Fortunately, that is set and updated without problems. A virtual machine was created, Solid got up under it ... and even earned it! But somehow not fast. It turned out there are a lot of nuances. Tuning is everything.
The first. Configuring virtual machine resources is a rather delicate matter. By virtualku gave exactly half the physical memory - 3 out of 6 gig. No more, no less.
The second. With a 4x-core processor Intel Core i3 put the number of processors on a virtual machine 4 pieces. Half cores multiplied by 2 turns. Having given half the computing resources to the virtual machine, it seems to have achieved the balance of computing power - neither the host nor the guest OS slows down.
In general, for several months of life in Ubuntu, I have never encountered a shortage of physical RAM (which I have 6 Gig on the laptop), but often I come across a 100% processor load. Periodically, something tries to take all the time the processor. Here, when updating Ubunt to version 15.10, he recklessly agreed to enable real-time support. Comp earned slowly. It turned out that because of some kind of bugs in the kernel, the kworker processes can absorb 80% of the CPU time, it’s not clear what. The blessing is treated simply:
sudo rmmod intel_powerclamp
I must note that in the Russian-speaking Internet Ubunt is very well supported. It is quite easy and quick to find a solution to problems arising both when increasing your own requests and when updating key software. For example, in the course of its research, VMWare upgraded from version 11 to version 12. After the update, it did not want to run. But a quick Google search gave a solution to this problem.
Of the strange nezhdanchikov need to note the behavior of Windows as a guest OS. Specifically, Windows 7, with which I work, since it is my official and purchased. Something is wrong with the update. Everyone knows that Windows wants to upgrade frequently and a lot. But so that when you “turn off the computer” for such a long time to update ... Particularly large updates took up to several hours. However, if the update is forced to launch from the control panel, then it passes regularly and quite quickly.
With Windows update is another nuance. We start guest Windows. Barely moving. We look at the process manager, the processes of all users. Download 100%, the process TrustedInstaller seeks to load the processor to the eyeballs. Google, and it turns out that this is the process of updating Windows, well, and even there in small details ... it does not allow anyone to write to the system directories. When you try to stop it starts again. It stops permanently by disabling automatic updating of Windows. Well, okay, we will ban.
I also had to install the NVIDIA native driver for the graphics adapter from the Ubuntu repository, because there was a suspicion that the driver that came up when the OS was installed was not quite correct. The suspicion was justified, the messages “No 3D support is available from the host” and “Hardware graphics acceleration is not avalable” disappeared when the virtual machines started.
The virtual machine requires, as a rule, from 20 gigabytes of hard disk space. Therefore, on a small HDD laptop, full of everything, there are a lot of virtual loops, as I had expected before all these experiments were started, in fact, you will not install.
I described the main problems that I encountered when installing what I absolutely needed for running Solidworks on a VMWare virtual machine when working in the Ubuntu host OS. In general, having picked it up for a couple of months with this and having a good tune, I think that the solution is quite workable. And comfortable. True, I have not opened the assembly of 3D-models of large machines for hundreds of parts. I do not know how such a software hierarchy will digest them. But with them and the Core i5 with 8 Gig of memory is not to say that smartly copes.
Now I, working in a virtual machine, do not see the difference with working on a normal, normally-built physical computer. When running (just running) Solid, Word and Firefox, the System Inaction process takes 95% of CPU time. The top utility from the Ubunt console says that vmware-vmx occupies 70% of the CPU time and 54% of the memory. That is, quite comfortable.
In parallel, I created a second virtual machine for software and controller development. CocoxIDE on another virtual machine saw the STM32 debug board, but I also did not really program it. Ahead are experiments with the rather whimsical ArtCAM program, which is very popular among CNC machines, as well as practical work with STM32 through CocoxIDE.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/275441/
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