Complete image of HD and Windows license "transfer" on VM for a newly bought laptop

[lammert-nijhof]

Well the only argument you provide, is that KVM and XEN are type 1 hypervisors and Virtualbox is a type 2 hypervisor. That is just jargon and it does not explain anything about performance in 2018. Both types do use the same VTx and AMD-V facilities both have nowadays the same memory management approach for running VMs; So there is no architectural reasons for a difference in performance. If you can explain the architectural difference in some detail, other then type 1 and type 2, I am happy to learn about it. Don't be afraid to go into some detail, because I worked inside propriety OSes (design and coding), that is why I'm supportive, bot not really fanatic about FOSS. In my opinion the only potential difference is caused by better written/reviewed code, more efficient compiler etc. KVM and XEN might have an advantage there, because I hear that the team working on Virtualbox in Oracle is small.

With respect to pass through of video cards that is possible in Vbox too, but still "experimental" and you need to go to the CLI. But with the current prices of video cards I would prefer to share that one expensive card between the VMs.

The mentioned performance comparison was not very relevant, because it concentrated on large servers with many CPUs (10 cores and 20 threads). Besides it has been run with Vbox 5.04 from Oct 2015. Release 5.0 was the first release implementing the VTx and AMD-V facilities, so probably not very well optimized yet. Despite that, KVM/XEN seems better in a server environment for program development. Virtualbox is better for running server production databases and Vbox/KVM and XEN are more or less equal in a home environment for e.g audio and video processing. Which completely proves my point!

[DuckHook]

Although this debate may indirectly benefit the OP, I'm afraid we are at risk of hijacking LastStarDust's thread. I am happy to continue discussion on a new thread which I shall start shortly. I am interested in whatever tricks you can show me to run VBox faster.

[LastStarDust]

I eventually managed to get everything working. Thanks to everybody for the valuable pieces of advice. For future reference, I am describing the steps that I have taken. I will try to be brief.

1. I wrote to the Japanese Lenovo customer service (I am Italian but I have just moved to Japan) before buying the laptop. As expected it was of no help. They suggested me to go to the University IT centre. I didn't even try. Japanese people are not very flexible especially when you ask for something that is not written in the manual. Moreover, I needed the laptop soon for my research. So I bought it.
2. First thing after receiving the laptop, I updated the BIOS to the last version since I know that it is very difficult to do this kind of operation within Linux (correct me if I am wrong).
3. Then I saved the ACPI tables and the license code on a USB drive. Maybe you can do this even after installing Linux. I noticed that the "SLIC" ACPI table was missing (I don't know why. Maybe it was erased during the BIOS update. Maybe it was never there. Anyway I did a complete backup of the drive with Clonezilla.
4. I completely erased Windows and installed Ubuntu 17.10.
5. I followed the procedure that @KillerKelvUK kindly suggested. I used qemu. Maybe since the SLIC table was missing Windows failed to activate.
6. I called the Microsoft customer call centre (the Italian one) and followed all the instructions given by a recorded voice. It was copying and pasting an infinite sequence of digits. But eventually, and surprisingly without any human interaction, I had my VM version of Windows activated.
7. Happy End

Thank you again to everybody

[KillerKelvUK]

glad you have this sorted!

Regards 2, in my experience linux makes no difference...avoid Windows based updates to bios, most/all vendors provide an update process from within the BIOS/UEFI itself which is OS agnostic.
And for 3...lol I just found this... https://github.com/ghuntley/seaslic ...laughed out loud a little when I read the README

[LastStarDust]

You mistyped the link. Please correct it and let me laugh too!

[KillerKelvUK]

Done

[LastStarDust]

lol
Anyway, now I am trying to use the GUI "Virtual Machine Manager" (that I think is a wrapper around libvirt), but without success.
This is the working little script that I use to start qemu:

#!/bin/bash
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -hda Windows10.qcow -m 4G -cpu host -smp 4 -vga std \
           -smbios type=1,manufacturer=LENOVO,product=***,version=ThinkPad\ X1\ Carbon\ 6th,\
serial=***,uuid=***,sku=LENOVO_MT_20KH_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad\ X1\ Carbon\ 6th,family=ThinkPad\ X1\ Carbon\ 6th \
           -smbios type=0,vendor=LENOVO,version=N23ET38W\ \(1.13\ \),date=03/12/2018,release=1.13 \
           -acpitable file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/msdm.bin

This is part of the xml file that is edited with the command

virsh edit Windows10

<domain type='kvm' id='18' xmlns:qemu='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/qemu/1.0'>
[...]
<qemu:commandline>
<qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
<qemu:arg value='type=0,vendor=LENOVO,version=N23ET38W (1.13 ),date=03/12/2018,release=1.13'/>
<qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
<qemu:arg value='type=1,manufacturer=LENOVO,product=***,version=ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th,serial=***,uuid=***,sku=LENOVO_MT_20KH_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th,family=ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th'/>
<qemu:arg value='-acpitable'/>
<qemu:arg value='file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/msdm.bin'/>
</qemu:commandline>

When I try to start the VM I always get the error

qemu-system-x86_64: -acpitable file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/msdm.bin: can't open file /var/lib/libvirt/images/msdm.bin: Permission denied

I tried to change ownership and permissions of that file without any effect.
Do you know what could be the cause of the error?

[KillerKelvUK]

Sounds like an apparmor deny to me...any suspect entries in your 'dmesg' output?

[LastStarDust]

I think you are right. Here it is the dmesg output:

[ 4565.762739] kauditd_printk_skb: 13 callbacks suppressed[ 4565.762740] audit: type=1400 audit(1523688451.723:25): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="libvirt-05337619-d4db-4025-a2cc-9cfd368214af" pid=6465 comm="apparmor_parser"
[ 4565.797660] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered blocking state
[ 4565.797662] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered disabled state
[ 4565.797708] device vnet0 entered promiscuous mode
[ 4565.798529] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered blocking state
[ 4565.798531] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered listening state
[ 4566.098018] audit: type=1400 audit(1523688452.058:26): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="libvirt-05337619-d4db-4025-a2cc-9cfd368214af" pid=6498 comm="apparmor_parser"
[ 4566.141164] audit: type=1400 audit(1523688452.101:27): apparmor="DENIED" operation="open" profile="libvirt-05337619-d4db-4025-a2cc-9cfd368214af" name="/var/lib/libvirt/images/msdm.bin" pid=6512 comm="qemu-system-x86" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=64055 ouid=64055
[ 4566.142531] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered disabled state
[ 4566.144323] device vnet0 left promiscuous mode
[ 4566.144325] virbr0: port 2(vnet0) entered disabled state
[ 4566.536173] audit: type=1400 audit(1523688452.496:28): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_remove" profile="unconfined" name="libvirt-05337619-d4db-4025-a2cc-9cfd368214af" pid=6531 comm="apparmor_parser"

[LastStarDust]

I solved by following the answer to this question: https://askubuntu.com/questions/7410...google_rich_qa
Thank you again KillerKelvUK!