Half of these exist because I was bored once.

The Windows 10 and MacOS ones are GPU passthrough enabled and what I occasionally use if I have to use a Windows or Mac application. Windows 7 is also GPU enabled, but is more a nostalgia thing than anything.

I think my PopOS VM was originally installed for fun, but I used it along with my Arch Linux, Debian 12 and Testing (I run Testing on host, but I wanted a fresh environment and was too lazy to spin up a Docker or chroot), Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora to test various software builds and bugs, as I don’t like touching normal Ubuntu unless I must.

The Windows Server 2022 one is one I recently spun up to mess with Windows Docker Containers (I have to port an app to Windows, and was looking at that for CI). That all become moot when I found out Github’s CI doesn’t support Windows Docker containers despite supporting Windows runners (The organization I’m doing it for uses Github, so I have to use it).

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
    5·
    11 hours ago

    The biggest reason why I don’t want maintain so many Vms is, because all the maintenance and updates that involve doing so.

    • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      3·
      11 hours ago

      And that’s why there’s a “-2” on the end of that arch vm - there was one before that I borked while trying to update it because I hadn’t used it in so long.

  • Raccoonn@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 hours ago

    GPU passthrough has always been one of those exciting ideas I’d love to dive into one day. My current GPU being a little older, has only 4GB of RAM. Oh the joy’s of being a budget PC user. Thankfully it’s more of a “would be nice rather” than an “actually need”…

  • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Well I do but I have a machine with 3/4 of a terabyte of memory on it.

    Work scraps are great sometimes.

    How are you running the MacOS VMs. The machine I have is a cheese grater so that makes it easier.

  • bruhSoulz@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    8 hours ago

    Bahah i have like 7 but im concerned by the fact i probably forgot the password to half of em xD

  • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
    3·
    11 hours ago

    I do have as many too at work.

    I use one VM for each iteration of my automation software. Our factory has machines ranging from the 90s to present day, and they use different software environments to be programmed. In order to minimize the risk of data loss, we have one virtual machine with every software environment, that way if one gets corrupted, the damage is contained. It also makes them easier to export to new computers when we need to replace ours.

  • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    Yeah.

    My home server runs that many, but it’s a monster dual xeon.

    The freebsd instances have a ton of jails, the Linux vms have a ton of lxc and docker containers.

    It’s how you run many services without losing your mind.

  • ColdWater@lemmy.ca
    2·
    12 hours ago

    I always remove any virtual machines every time I’m done with it and reinstall if I need to use it again

  • wulf@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 hours ago

    I run a different LXC on Proxmox for every service, so it’s a bunch. Probably a better way to do it since most of those just run a docker container inside them.

    • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      Why mix docker and VMs? Isn’t docker sort of like a VM, an application-level VM maybe? (I obviously do not understand Docker well)

      • lazynooblet@lazysoci.alEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        I like to run a hypervisor host as just that, a hypervisor host. The host being stable is important, and also reduce attack surface by only having it as that.

        An LXC per service is somewhat overkill. A docker host running on LXC could likely run all the docker containers.

      • Kovukono@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        4 hours ago

        Serious answer, I’m not sure why someone would run a VM to run just a container inside the VM, aside from the VM providing volumes (directories) to the VM. That said, VMs are perfectly capable of running containers, and can run multiple containers without issue. For work, our Gitlab instance has runners that are VMs that just run containers.

        Fun answer, have you heard of Docker in Docker?

  • Auster@lemm.ee
    2·
    10 hours ago

    On the joke, define “sane”. 😬

    On a serious note, I think there are valid reasons to have several VMs other than “I was bored”. In my case, for example, I have a total of 7 VMs, where 2 are miscellaneous systems to test things out, 2 are for stuff that I can’t normally run on Linux, 2 are offline VMs for language dictionaries, and 1 is a BlissOS VM with Google programs in case I can’t/don’t want to use my phone.