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vGPU OS
Documentation: Daily use

Documentation · Usage

Daily use

The vGPU OS session: the OSX-REIMS console, full-screen VMs, autostart, restart and power off.

Alpha

This documentation covers vGPU OS 0.1.2, in alpha. Screens and commands may change between versions; to see the installed version, use vgpu-os version.

After the first setup, vGPU OS behaves like an appliance: turn it on, and the OSX-REIMS console opens. There is no desktop, graphical login, or file manager.

Turning on the computer

  1. The boot menu is hidden and the system boots directly (press Esc while it loads to see the menu).
  2. The Starting vGPU OS loading screen covers the startup.
  3. The OSX-REIMS console opens in full screen.

If a boot fails, the boot menu automatically appears again on the next one, for a few seconds.

The OSX-REIMS console

It is the same interface as OSX-REIMS on Ubuntu: create, import, manage, and maintain VMs, and view logs. On vGPU OS it takes up the whole screen and the header shows the version with the +vgpuos suffix, for example v0.4.1+vgpuos1.

The complete console documentation is on the OSX-REIMS site: Console (opens in a new tab), First VM (opens in a new tab), and VM settings (opens in a new tab).

Differences on vGPU OS:

  • VM windows always open in full screen, in the same Wayland compositor as the console;
  • each VM's GPU can be chosen in the VM settings when there is more than one. See GPUs and drivers.

Going back from macOS to the console

The VM takes up the entire screen. To return to the console, shut down macOS from the Apple menu → Shut Down; the VM closes and the console appears again. The options to shut down, restart, and force-stop the VM are also in the console, under Manage VMs.

Automatic start

In the VM settings, in OSX-REIMS, mark the VM to start on its own. When you turn on the computer, vGPU OS opens the console and the VM starts right after, all the way to the macOS screen — without a single keypress along the way.

Restarting and shutting down the computer

When you exit the OSX-REIMS console (Quit option), a session menu appears:

Key Action
Enter Opens the console again
s Opens a terminal (advanced)
r Restarts the computer
p Shuts down the computer

Terminal and remote access

For diagnostics and maintenance, there are three ways to reach a Linux terminal, always with the vgpu-user user:

  • the s option in the session menu;
  • Ctrl+Alt+F2 opens a text login screen; Ctrl+Alt+F1 returns to the session;
  • SSH from another computer on the network.

The available commands are in Commands.