Thinking of starting a home minecraft server
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I've got a pair of laptops that we are going to be giving to my boys (8 and 7) soon. One reason is to start them working with a full computer. The other reason is so that we can all play minecraft together. So far, I have been playing on a PC and they have their fire tablets, but those are clunky. I am thinking of taking an old desktop that I have and turning it into a little home server running hyper-v or KVM. Then running a minecraft server or two in VM's. The PC already has licensed windows 10, which is why I would consider hyper-v, but part of me wants to try out KVM and play around with it.
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Make sure you have enough RAM for the server. Especially if you're doing any mods. Minecraft server just runs better under *nix so I'd move to that as well.
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Why would you care about the Windows 10 licenses? If you're going to run Hyper-V, you should run the completely unencumbered free version. Download it from the MS trial website - FYI, it's not a trial.
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@Dashrender said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
Why would you care about the Windows 10 licenses? If you're going to run Hyper-V, you should run the completely unencumbered free version. Download it from the MS trial website - FYI, it's not a trial.
only because I don't want to lose a valid windows 10 installation unless I do it on purpose.
@coliver said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
Make sure you have enough RAM for the server. Especially if you're doing any mods. Minecraft server just runs better under *nix so I'd move to that as well.
The PC has 32GB of ram. I would plan to run the servers under linux.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
only because I don't want to lose a valid windows 10 installation unless I do it on purpose.
HUH? That's sunk cost thinking.
You're making this into a server, then do what makes it sing as a server best. Installing Windows 10, then using Hyper-V on (actually likely under) windows 10, you still can't turn off the Win10 VM, so you'll be giving up resources to it for no reason.
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Plus, you could always install normal Hyper-V, then make a Windows 10 VM on that box if you needed it. You're license would still be valid because you're running it on that hardware.
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@Dashrender said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
only because I don't want to lose a valid windows 10 installation unless I do it on purpose.
HUH? That's sunk cost thinking.
You're making this into a server, then do what makes it sing as a server best. Installing Windows 10, then using Hyper-V on (actually likely under) windows 10, you still can't turn off the Win10 VM, so you'll be giving up resources to it for no reason.
I might want a windows VM. If I install KVM, I can't get windows for a later workload without paying for it. It is sunk cost, but it's also just a home project. The most it would do is probably share some storage inside the home LAN.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
The PC already has licensed windows 10, which is why I would consider hyper-v, but part of me wants to try out KVM and play around with it.
Hyper-V is free. That it has a Windows 10 license gets you nothing. And if it is Windows 10 Home, you have to remove it to use Hyper-V, anyway.
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@scottalanmiller said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
The PC already has licensed windows 10, which is why I would consider hyper-v, but part of me wants to try out KVM and play around with it.
Hyper-V is free. That it has a Windows 10 license gets you nothing. And if it is Windows 10 Home, you have to remove it to use Hyper-V, anyway.
It's pro.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Dashrender said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
only because I don't want to lose a valid windows 10 installation unless I do it on purpose.
HUH? That's sunk cost thinking.
You're making this into a server, then do what makes it sing as a server best. Installing Windows 10, then using Hyper-V on (actually likely under) windows 10, you still can't turn off the Win10 VM, so you'll be giving up resources to it for no reason.
I might want a windows VM. If I install KVM, I can't get windows for a later workload without paying for it. It is sunk cost, but it's also just a home project. The most it would do is probably share some storage inside the home LAN.
That's not at all how that works. No matter what you use for virtualization, Windows licensing is never affected.
http://www.joeyoungblood.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/reddit-thats-not-how-this-works.jpg
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@scottalanmiller said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
The PC already has licensed windows 10, which is why I would consider hyper-v, but part of me wants to try out KVM and play around with it.
Hyper-V is free. That it has a Windows 10 license gets you nothing. And if it is Windows 10 Home, you have to remove it to use Hyper-V, anyway.
It's pro.
So it exists, but still has no benefits. You get the same benefits from KVM here.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Dashrender said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
Why would you care about the Windows 10 licenses? If you're going to run Hyper-V, you should run the completely unencumbered free version. Download it from the MS trial website - FYI, it's not a trial.
only because I don't want to lose a valid windows 10 installation unless I do it on purpose.
Understandable. but you don't lose it, hence why we are recommending KVM.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
The most it would do is probably share some storage inside the home LAN.
Even if you have Windows already, wouldn't it be nicer to do that with Linux, too? This is a perfect place for Linux at home.
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If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Pull the key from BIOS. You can use it to activate the VM.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed?
No, this is never the case. There is no situation where deleting Windows requires relicensing to put back on the same hardware.
Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Yes, it knows normally. Even if it doesn't know, that doesn't change the license requirements. Under no condition can you have a legit license now and lose it in this fashion.
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@JaredBusch said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Pull the key from BIOS. You can use it to activate the VM.
I had no idea you could do that. Thats awesome.
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@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@JaredBusch said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Pull the key from BIOS. You can use it to activate the VM.
I had no idea you could do that. Thats awesome.
choco install keyfinder
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@bnrstnr said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@JaredBusch said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Pull the key from BIOS. You can use it to activate the VM.
I had no idea you could do that. Thats awesome.
choco install keyfinder
Does that work on BIOS keys now? I thought that only showed the "key" Windows reported. That is not the BIOS key.
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@JaredBusch said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@bnrstnr said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@JaredBusch said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
@Donahue said in Thinking of starting a home minecraft server:
If I blow away windows and install KVM, and then later decide that I want a windows 10 VM, won't it have to be licensed? Or will it somehow know that it was once licensed on that machine, even as a later VM? I dont think it would know, and would therefore need a new license.
Pull the key from BIOS. You can use it to activate the VM.
I had no idea you could do that. Thats awesome.
choco install keyfinder
Does that work on BIOS keys now? I thought that only showed the "key" Windows reported. That is not the BIOS key.
I believe the key it shows will activate. I'm not 100% positive though.
I don't even have anything around that I can test this on right now either.
