Phyllome OS

Virtualization for the rest of us

This is the alpha version of Phyllome OS. Expect bugs and disappointment.

External contributions to Phyllome OS are welcome. Have a look here for some ideas on what to do next, or feel free to create an issue and suggest an idea you wish to work on. Also, it might be good to skim through the white-paper to understand what it is about and what the project is trying to achieve.

The Phyllome OS Project is looking for core contributors, willing to contribute regularly to the project. If you are interested in making cutting-edge open-source virtualization more accessible, email to contact@phyllo.me.

Phyllome OS is a Fedora Remix based on Fedora Server 35 designed to leverage hardware-assisted virtualization and paravirtualization to make it easier to run modern guest operating systems locally.

What

This repository contains the basic building blocks required to deploy the plaform-agnostic edition of Phyllome OS Desktop, inside a virtual machine, using a kickstart file.

Kickstart files are used to automate the installation and configuration of RPM-based operating systems.

If you would like to install Phyllome OS on your computer instead, as a replacement of your current operating system, please follow this guide instead.

Structure of the repository

• blocks : this directory contains the basic building blocks for assembling Phyllome OS Desktop and Phyllome OS Server.
  • This is where most of the development happens.
• blocks-live : this directory contains the basic building blocks for creating a live medium for Phyllome OS.
  • The code in this directory usually lags behind what is found in the blocks directory.
  • Ideally, the blocks and blocks-live directory will eventually be merged, and the number of blocks will be reduced to avoid code duplication.
• leaves : this directory contains the end-product in the form of stand-alone and ready-to-use kickstart files.
  • For instance, the kickstart file to deploy the Phyllome OS Desktop edition optimized for Intel(tm) CPUs and GPUs, referred to as Phyllome Desktop II.
• post : this directory contains scripts that are meant to be run manually by the user after a successful installation.
  • These code snippets will eventually be included inside existing building blocks, summoned as a systemd unit after a successful installation, or turned into RPM-packages.

How to hack Phyllome OS

Only Linux-based development is possible at the moment. Support for macOS and Windows-based development will follow.

As of now, hacking kickstart files is the main way to develop Phyllome OS.

Have a look here to learn the kickstart syntax. You can also study the official kickstart for all Fedora versions here.

Requirements

• A Linux distribution, with a recent Linux Kernel (> 5.X)
• An x86_64 platform with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled.
  • Follow this guide to learn how to activate hardware-assisted virtualization on a supported platform.
• Nested-virtualization enabled (optional but better to have)
• virt-install and virt-manager, as well as libvirt and qemu-kvm up and running

Enable nested-virtualization

• Enable nested-virtualization on AMD-based systems, then reboot:

sudo echo "options kvm_amd nested=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf

• Verify that nested-virtualization is activated, using the following command, which should return a 1:

cat /sys/module/kvm_amd/parameters/nested    
1

Enable nested-virtualization on Intel-based systems, then reboot:

sudo echo "options kvm_intel nested=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf`

• Verify that nested-virtualization is activated, using the following command, which should return a 1:

cat /sys/module/kvm_intel/parameters/nested    
1

Install the prerequisites on Fedora 35

sudo dnf install -y qemu-kvm libvirt libvirt-daemon-config-network libvirt-daemon-kvm virt-install virt-top virt-manager libguestfs-tools python3-libguestfs guestfs-tools pykickstart

Install the prerequisites on Ubuntu 20.4 or Debian 11

To be done

Define new URI for the virtual machine manager

GNOME Shell only

By default, virt-manager connect to libvirtd as root. The following command will add a new URI to virt-manager so that you can manage virtual machines using your potentially unprivileged account.

gsettings set org.virt-manager.virt-manager.connections uris "['qemu:///system', 'qemu:///session']"
gsettings set org.virt-manager.virt-manager.connections autoconnect "['qemu:///system', 'qemu:///session']"

Hack around

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/PhyllomeOS/PhyllomeOS.git

Modify some files, typically inside the blocks directory, using your favorite editor.

Then, merge the kickstart basic building blocks into a single file, a process called 'flattening'.

ksflatten -c virtual-desktop-hypervisor.cfg -o ../leaves/virtual-phyllome-desktop.cfg

If any errors are detected, go back and fix them.

When you are done, move to the leaves directory:

cd ../leaves

Fire it up!

The following command will read your flattened file and use it to automatically bootstrap your modified revision of Phyllome OS on a virtual machine with 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of RAM and a disk of 5 GB.

Adjust it according to your need.

virt-install \
    --connect qemu:///session \
    --metadata description="Phyllome OS Desktop, generic edition" \
    --os-variant detect=off \
    --virt-type kvm \
    --arch x86_64 \
    --machine q35 \
    --name virtual-phyllome-desktop \
    --boot uefi \
    --cpu host-model,topology.sockets=1,topology.cores=2,topology.threads=1 \
    --vcpus 2 \
    --memory 4096 \
    --video virtio \
    --graphics spice,listen=none \
    --channel spicevmc \
    --autoconsole none \
    --console pty,target.type=virtio \
    --sound none \
    --network type=user,model=virtio \
    --controller type=virtio-serial \
    --controller type=usb,model=none \
    --controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi \
    --input type=keyboard,bus=virtio \
    --input type=tablet,bus=virtio \
    --rng /dev/urandom,model=virtio \
    --disk path=~/.local/share/libvirt/images/virtual-phyllome-desktop.img,format=raw,bus=virtio,cache=writeback,size=5 \
    --location=https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/35/Everything/x86_64/os/ \
    --initrd-inject virtual-phyllome-desktop.cfg --extra-args "inst.ks=file:virtual-phyllome-desktop.cfg"

You should see the following message:

Starting install...
Retrieving file vmlinuz...                                  |  10 MB  00:00     
Retrieving file initrd.img...                               |  79 MB  00:02     
Allocating 'virtinst-inlu7cmw-vmlinuz'                      |  10 MB  00:00     
Transferring virtinst-inlu7cmw-vmlinuz                      |  10 MB  00:00     
Allocating 'virtinst-2dd8ghse-initrd.img'                   |  79 MB  00:00     
Transferring virtinst-2dd8ghse-initrd.img                   |  79 MB  00:01     
Allocating 'virtual-phyllome-desktop.img'                   | 5.0 GB  00:00     

Domain is still running. Installation may be in progress.
You can reconnect to the console to complete the installation process.

The installation process will be launched behind the scenes. You can open virt-manager and connect to the virtual machine console to follow the process. Eventually, you will be greeted with this screen:

After you are done setting up your user account, virt-manager will automatically start:

If the installation is successful and your feature is working as intended, you are welcome to create a pull request. Thank you!

Phyllome OS

Phyllome OS goal is to maximize ease-of-use and compatibility. As such, it intends to become the easiest way to use modern operating systems locally, in a virtual machine, by integrating pertinent open-source software such as libvirt, qemu-kvm (and eventually Cloud Hypervisor), as well as virt-manager.

Users should not have to manage Phyllome OS: they should be able to pick their favorite operating system and Phyllome OS should run it, no questions asked.

Note : expect for open-source Darwin derivatives, Phyllome OS strongly discourages users from running proprietary, darwin-based derivatives on non-Apple hardware.

The Phyllome OS Project

The Phyllome OS Project relies on multiple tools, including the following public-facing tools:

• Wiki: Take a look at the wiki repository for more information on how you can contribute to improving the documentation.
• Issues tracker: a public, read-only issue tracking is available online. From now on, GitHub issue tracking will be used to track development-only issues.
• Code repository: GitHub is used to host the code, with a mirror pointing to git.phyllo.me

License

• MIT for the most part, alongside GPL licensed code.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the main contributors of the official Fedora kickstart files repository, and related tools:

Adam Miller, Bastien Nocera, Bruno Wolff III, Bryan Kearney, Chitlesh Goorah, Christoph Wickert, Colin Walters, Fabian Affolter, Igor Pires Soares, Jens Petersen, Jeremy Katz, Jeroen van Meeuwen Jesse Keating, Luya Tshimbalanga, Matthias Clasen, Pedro Silva, Rahul Sundaram, Sebastian Dziallas Sebastian Vahl, wart. More information here : https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts