Christian Wick iamchriswick

High-Performance Windows 11 KVM Guide for Fedora

This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough for setting up a high-performance Windows 11 virtual machine on a Fedora Workstation host, with a focus on GPU passthrough and system optimization. It is intended for users with a moderately technical background.

Part 0: System Information & Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the required components and gather critical information about your hardware.

Prerequisites:

Introduction

This guide provides a complete, end-to-end walkthrough for setting up an advanced Fedora 42 Workstation. The goal is to create a highly resilient and performant system built on a custom Btrfs layout, featuring:

Automated Local Snapshots: Using Snapper for high-frequency, local snapshots of critical system and user subvolumes.
Bootable Rollbacks: Integrating grub-btrfs to allow booting directly into a previous system state from the GRUB menu, making system recovery trivial.
A 3-Tier Backup Strategy: A sophisticated, automated backup workflow that dispatches snapshots to different storage tiers based on retention requirements:
- Tier 1 (Local SSD): Instant, high-frequency snapshots for immediate recovery.
- Tier 2 (Dedicated Btrfs Drive): Short-term (hourly, daily) snapshot replication for rapid data access.
Tier 3 (ZFS Mirror): Long-term (weekly, monthly, yearly) archival on a resilient ZFS mirror for ultimate data integrity.

Keyboard/Hotkeys/Touchpads Passthrough (Proxmox → Fedora, GNOME / Wayland) for MSI Katana

Purpose

Pass the laptop’s built-in keyboard, hotkeys, and both touchpads to VM 101. Use udev symlinks on the host for stability across reboots, and expose touchpads as virtio-input-host to get native GNOME gestures in the guest.

Host (Proxmox)

Setting Up Windows 11 Virtual Machine on Fedora Silverblue

This guide walks you through creating a high-performance Windows 11 virtual machine (VM) on Fedora Silverblue using GPU passthrough technology. This setup allows you to run Windows applications that require dedicated graphics performance while keeping your primary system secure with Fedora Silverblue.

What is GPU Passthrough?

GPU passthrough allows your virtual machine to use your dedicated graphics card directly, providing near-native gaming and graphics performance in Windows while running on Linux. This is different from typical virtualization where graphics performance is limited.

Key terms you'll encounter:

Proxmox VE GPU Passthrough Setup Guide

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for setting up GPU passthrough in Proxmox VE, supporting both Intel and AMD systems with NVIDIA or AMD GPUs.

Interesting Startups in The Recruiting & Hiring Space

Companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have transformed the general perception of joining a startup in recent years. What was once seen as a risky move is now seen as a promising opportunity by recent graduates and veteran workers alike.

"Startups are no longer niche; they have gone mainstream."

–Daniel Gulati, co-author of Passion & Purpose

How to Find Top Tech Talent for Your Tech Startup

Companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have transformed the general perception of joining a startup in recent years. What was once seen as a risky move is now seen as a promising opportunity by recent graduates and veteran workers alike.

"Startups are no longer niche; they have gone mainstream."

–Daniel Gulati, co-author of Passion & Purpose

Use these rapid keyboard shortcuts to control the GitHub Atom text editor on Mac OSX.

Key to the Keys

⌘ : Command key
⌃ : Control key
⌫ : Delete key
← : Left arrow key
→ : Right arrow key
↑ : Up arrow key

Keybase proof

I hereby claim:

I am iamchriswick on github.
I am iamchriswick (https://keybase.io/iamchriswick) on keybase.
I have a public key ASAw_sJ3saBM5fqrUoR6HSmbuvZoUUlw0ddnXPxwaCdi2go

To claim this, I am signing this object:

	# Customize BASH PS1 prompt to show current GIT repository and branch.
	# by Mike Stewart - http://MediaDoneRight.com

	# SETUP CONSTANTS
	# Bunch-o-predefined colors. Makes reading code easier than escape sequences.
	# I don't remember where I found this. o_O

	# Reset
	Color_Off="\[\033[0m\]" # Text Reset