KVM + virt-manager: which is the perfect host Linux distro?

Hi all,

I am about to install a new host system, which will be hosting various guest systems by means of KVM & virt-manager for GUI.

What would be the best choice for host OS distro? Red Hat, or will any mature Linux distro do?
Personally I am more of a Gentoo guy, but if there is 1 distro which is clearly better as host OS when it comes to KVM+virt-manager, I am willing to use something else... ;-)

Regards,
Evert

Did you try this one:

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page

It's Debian based and have everything you need for virtualisation already prepared.

Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org

To my knowledge Proxmox does not support software RAID ( http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/kvm-83-released-support-amd-iommu-qemu-svn-merge ), unless you configure that manually... Otherwise Proxmox is promising, yes...

Can I conclude from that that Debian is the best host distro to go for? Better than Red Hat & Gentoo?

Regards,
Evert

I'm not really convinced there's a big enough difference that it matters -- particularly on a production system where you intend to stick to stable, well-tested software. That said, many of the bleeding-edge tools coming out of Red Hat's Emerging Technologies group (such as libguestfs) are developed principally for Fedora; if you're looking to live on the edge, that might be the way to go.

Ubuntu also has their own virtualization group; if you want something where your distributor makes an effort to keep maintained packages available (and accept that this means that they'll lag behind latest upstream a bit), it's not a bad place to be either.

Fedora supports KVM and virt-manager nicely. I can't say it's the best, only that it works solidly.

Bill Davidsen <[email protected]>
  "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot