Silly Vm question: Monitor to a VM

Hello, I am not sure that this is the right forum section to ask this but…

As from title I have a silly question about the vm: in proxmox, truenas scale, xen or unraid, can I assign a monitor (hdmi output) as well as a keyboard and mouse to a virtual machine?

What I would like to do, is to use to directly control the vm instead of use remote desktop (so power on another computer) to interact with that

If you pass through the video card to a VM it’s output can be on the monitor.

Thank you! This is a very good info :+1:
I didn’t know that, my only experience with vm is with vmware player

So if I have two video cards (2 pcie or onboard + pcie) I could have windows on monitor 1 and fedora on monitor 2?

As a newbie what software could I use to begin? I was thinking of proxmox or truenas scale (since I could use it also as NAS), I saw you videos about xen and to me it seems to complicated (too much settings etc) am I right?

I am not sure which platform would be the least complex. Craft Computing has lots of videos on the topic

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Hello Tom, I did a quick test (using truenas scale) and it worked at first try, I was able to see the fedora desktop and hear some music using the display port audio passthrough.
Unfortunately the mobo I used is a mini itx so I can not do a test with 2 vm and 2 video cards. But it should work too

I have only question: as I understood, to have the usb keyboard / mouse on the vm I have to pass the entire controller.

To me it seems an big issue, I mean, I can’t try it but, if it is already assigned to a vm, I am not sure that I can I assign it even to another one. Am I right?

If so, how can I solve? buy a second pc? :sweat_smile:

Most hypervisors will let you pass through individual USB devices.

Thanks, I used Truenas since I also need a beh, of a nas.
The idea was to use “one” pc to “bring them all” and keep the electric costs low instead of use 2 pc (1 nas + 1 hypervisor).

I could keep the configuration as it is and add a pcie usb controller, or virtualize truenas (giving him direct access to the drives), and keep only 1 pc.

Which options are you think is the best to me?

I really don’t do setups like this so I don’t know what the best option is.

Thanks for the reply :wink: