T11 VM issue

[boilerboy165]

I cannot run a VM on my T11. Windows 10 pro has native VMs in the system so its not an OS incompatibility issue. I purchased this PC to run a couple VMs for sandbox development. I am using Oracle VirtualBox and trying to run an Ubuntu machine. I noticed the bios options are extremely limited. Any idea why this is failing? I know others have had this issue and this is extremely frustrating. Any help would be appreciated.

[admin]

It is normal that some Linux cannot be installed on our products, the main reason is that the Linux software support is not good. The Linux system is not as compatible as the Windows system. It is highly compatible and profitable, so thousands of people have developed and repaired it. So windows performance is relatively complete.
Ordinary computers use VMs to install Ubuntu systems and sometimes fail. This is a normal phenomenon. If you are entangled in this problem, you can perform VM processing on Windows systems, because more people use Windows systems and better compatibility.

[boilerboy165]

It is normal that some Linux cannot be installed on our products, the main reason is that the Linux software support is not good. The Linux system is not as compatible as the Windows system. It is highly compatible and profitable, so thousands of people have developed and repaired it. So windows performance is relatively complete.
Ordinary computers use VMs to install Ubuntu systems and sometimes fail. This is a normal phenomenon. If you are entangled in this problem, you can perform VM processing on Windows systems, because more people use Windows systems and better compatibility.

While I appreciate the answer, it’s not a topical one. I have seen this same canned answer on other posts. Your view on Linux is highly backwards. Just because something is for profit doesn’t mean it’s more supported or a better option. Linux has an enormous amount of support. Linux is a great OS with countless distros each suited towards a specific use case instead of Windows’ 3 limited options. It’s unfortunate that your company has taken this stance and I recommend that you reconsider and allow for virtualization on your machines. Allow the user to decide what is the best manner in which to use their personal machines. After all, as you stated before, profitability is important. Opening these features will grant you a larger market. Remember, you don’t have to support this use case just allow it.

[admin]

We will listen to you, thank you for your feedback.If you need help optimizing the product's Linux, or if any users of the forum have any questions, then you can participate in the forum to answer questions and get moderator positions.

Thank you for supporting Linux.

[themagicrabbit]

Hi... on my T11 Windows is reporting virtualisation enabled in the task manager so I don't think it's a firmware issue. I realise it's common to have a switch in the firmware to enable VT-x but it doesn't need to be present for the CPU flags to be exposed to the OS.

But the thing about VT-x is that it's a hardware device and only one piece of software is able to use it at a time. Probably you have a conflict between Hyper-V and VirtualBox. If you really want to use VirtualBox have a look at disabling Hyper-V and see how you get on.

All the best.

[spikerguy]

It is normal that some Linux cannot be installed on our products, the main reason is that the Linux software support is not good. The Linux system is not as compatible as the Windows system. It is highly compatible and profitable, so thousands of people have developed and repaired it. So windows performance is relatively complete.
Ordinary computers use VMs to install Ubuntu systems and sometimes fail. This is a normal phenomenon. If you are entangled in this problem, you can perform VM processing on Windows systems, because more people use Windows systems and better compatibility.

While I appreciate the answer, it’s not a topical one. I have seen this same canned answer on other posts. Your view on Linux is highly backwards. Just because something is for profit doesn’t mean it’s more supported or a better option. Linux has an enormous amount of support. Linux is a great OS with countless distros each suited towards a specific use case instead of Windows’ 3 limited options. It’s unfortunate that your company has taken this stance and I recommend that you reconsider and allow for virtualization on your machines. Allow the user to decide what is the best manner in which to use their personal machines. After all, as you stated before, profitability is important. Opening these features will grant you a larger market. Remember, you don’t have to support this use case just allow it.

I agree to this point. I am a Maintainer at a Linux OS distro 'Manjaro', From what I understand you need the virtualisation to be enabled in the BIOS, this will fix the issue of not being able to install anything on Oracle VM.

Can you share screenshot of the error you're getting. Were you able to load the ISO to the VM ?
If you're still looking into it then I will try to help as I have a similar CPU samples to test your use case on.
I will try to help AcePC with Linux support as much possible from my side

[jcx]

I'm more than willing to spin up a VirtualBox install on my T11 and see if I encounter any problems.

It appears that VT-x is enabled by default in the BIOS (though there's no options to enable/disable it).

If you had issues with VT-x, you could create your virtual machines without using the VT-x functions, although they will be a little slower, they'll work on hardware without VT-x available. I did this on an old laptop for a long time that didn't have VT-x.

Anyway, I'll have a go with vbox and report back how I get on. Might be a little while before you get my reply (since all my posts seem to require admin approval before they'll appear)

Kind regards,
jcx

[jcx]

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back in touch as I've not been particularly well.

I am pleased however to report back that VirtualBox works fine on my T11 AcePC. I downloaded the latest version of VirtualBox (at time of writing 6.1.8) and set up a test Xubuntu virtual machine. My AcePC has VT-x enabled (which you can tell if this is enabled by using taskmgr. On the performance tab, it will say Virtualisation: Enabled) however there's no option to enable/disable this in the BIOS.

If you can't run VMs with VT-x (if it's disabled or unavailable) you would have to download VirtualBox 6.0 which is the last version that supports software virtualised VMs, but it's still supported until July 2020, and will continue to work after that, there just won't be any security updates or patches for it.

It's also worth mentioning that the last version of VirtualBox to run on 32bit host systems was 5.2 (which is also still supported until July 2020), but it seems that the AcePCs usually have 64-bit Windows on them anyway so that shouldn't be an issue.

I've also attached a screenshot of my AcePC running a Xubuntu VM (showing Firefox and the top of these forums) and taskmgr showing system resources at the time.



I don't think these Virtual Machines will be particularly fast, and you'll certainly need to add some additional storage somehow (2.5" SSD perhaps?). Although this wasn't the remit here to say it's wise or not to run a VM, but to actually see if it were possible and the best steps for how to do it.

I hope my post has helped. If I can help further, let me know!

Kind regards,
jcx

[admin]

Thank you very much for sharing.