Centos 7 as a KVM host on Lenovo X1 Yoga?

scottinsydney

Experienced programmer, know Unix fairly well, but rather new to Linux...

I've recently purchased a Lenovo X1 Yoga with the below configuration:

Processor                   : Intel Core i7-6600U Processor (4MB Cache, up to 3.40GHz)
Operating System            : Windows 10 Pro 64
Display                     : 14.0 WQHD (2560 x 1440) OLED Touch
Memory                      : 16GB LPDDR3 SDRAM 1866MHz
Graphics                    : Intel HD Graphics 520
Security Features           : Integrated Fingerprint Reader
TPM Setting                 : Software TPM Enabled
Camera                      : 720p HD Camera with Microphone
Security Chip               : Software TPM & Hardware dTPM
Hard Drive                  : 1 TB Solid State Drive PCIe-NVMe
Pointing device             : UltraNav (TrackPoint and ClickPad)
Wireless                    : Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 (2x2 Wi-Fi, 11ac) with Bluetooth 4.1
Integrated Mobile Broadband : Integrated Mobile Broadband 4G LTE (Huawei ME906S)
Display Panel               : 14.0" OLED WQHD (2560 x 1440), touch, No WiGig, Camera, Mic
ThinkPad Pen                : ThinkPad Pen Pro

I would like to configure and use the laptop as follows:

• I want to make Linux my primary o/s for day-to-day operations, with Windows only as required
• Currently, I want to dual boot Windows and Linux, since there is some Windows s/w I require for work
• Within Linux, I want to run numerous Linux distros as VM's using KVM, as much as a learning exercise/hobby as anything else.
• Eventually, I may choose to delete the Windows partition and run Windows as a VM as well

With that in mind, and after weeks of web research, I've decided on Centos 7 as the KVM host. I hope to run Arch as my primary day-to-day distro within KVM, hopefully with acceptable performance as a VM.

• Any comments on the above usage scenario?
• Given the hardware above, is Centos a good choice as the KVM host? Is Centos 7 "cutting edge" enough to work with very recent hardware?

(I've already had a problem installing Centos (python error) but I'll post that as a separate thread)

saqman2060

The hardware you have is capable being used as an enterprise server. Yes, it is more than sufficient. Make sure the CPU has a VT-extension, otherwise you will have to use a software-based VM. If you are using ubuntu the package is cpu-checker, command, "kvm-ok". For CentOS, check the information contained in /proc/cpuinfo 

#cat /proc/cpuinfo

I read that CentOS offers native support for KVM, meaning it was designed with the idea of install a functional KVM VM on it. CentOS is not cutting edge but more of a clone fo RedHat. It is a free, community version of RedHat and designed by a community to a free enterprise-level Linux OS for production use. 

Though you are not limited to just CentOS. KVM is an open source package can be install on any Linux distro. What is required is a kernel that supports KVM; any kernel version 2.6.20 and above will work. Make sure you consult documentation. Recent Linux Kernels works well with MOST recent computing hardware.

https://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-kvm-on-a-centos-6.3-server