Create Hyper-V Gen2 image for download

[WSLUser]

Gen 2 for Hyper-V has been out for years now and increases performance drastically. See for differences: https://www.nakivo.com/blog/hyper-v-generation-1-vs-2/. There are steps to create a Gen2 VM from a Gen1 but it's much less user friendly for Linux VMs. It would be better instead for Clear Linux to simply offer a Gen2 image (vhdx) for download at https://clearlinux.org/downloads. I'm pretty sure even Azure is using Gen2 at this point for most distros (Actually Azure is upstream for Hyper-V changes).

[sala91]

Agreed. Would be great for trying out before deciding to ditch Windows.

[WSLUser]

I would check out WSL2 before ditching Windows. Just import the docker image and add a user. I just want another option for cases in which a full VM may be needed.

[elektrolytik]

The team used to create Hyper-V Gen2 images. Release 32980 was the last release that included a Gen 2 image. I can't remember and can't find the reason that they stopped. The hyperv.vhdx files here are what you are looking for.

https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32980/clear/

In theory you should be able to use that VHDX, bring it up to date with swupd and be gold.

I'm still using Gen 2 VMs for all of my server instances and they are still getting updates for everything including the kernel.

[WSLUser]

Thanks for that link. I'll definitely test it out with WSL2 first, then try out Hyper-V the next time I need to mess with it.

[xanderdunn]

I'm unable to try Clear Linux on Azure due to a lack of Gen 2 image:

The DC "confidential compute" instances we're using support only Gen 2 images. Supporting Azure Gen 2 images would be greatly appreciated.

[WSLUser]

For Azure, I think a better ask would be to be placed on the Azure Marketplace if they aren't already there but they'll still need to bump their VM build to Gen 2 anyways. If they at least made their build process more transparent for how they originally did Gen2, that would be very helpful. I did try the old Gen2 image before but appears to of been corrupted as I couldn't use it for WSL2 or Hyper-V. Makes me think some changes were made to the Gen2 VM generation, which isn't surprising.

[ThaDaVos]

Any update on this? Pretty sad a Gen2 image isn't provided anymore... at least no up to date - currently trying the one from https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32980/clear/

[ephut]

The tooling was in pretty bad shape so we stopped, but we'll check again.

[ThaDaVos]

I also notice that the kernel used with kernel-hyperv is pretty old: 5.6.7-285.hyperv

I am getting some errors when the image boots and found only that it may be because of an outdated kernel:

[ThaDaVos]

It seems the Hyper-V kernel is just outdated: