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Yeah works fine now. Was a matter of some annoying symlinking.
Thanks again, and I will have to make a decision soon. While having a non-internet-connected Windows 10 installation on the other SSD might sound like a good idea, the problem is that when it comes to activating and deactivating software installations, you still need to connect to the internet.
Unless DaVinci Resolve Studio allows offline activation/deactivation, I'd not be able to do that, and I'm not sure it does, or at least I don't recall seeing it. At the moment, that fancy new release is a beta, and I don't fancy downloading that lot (huge download with the new locally installed AI stuff) until I've decided one way or the other.
No matter what (and no matter which distro), I'll only ever use Linux as my main OS from now on, but I still need to think smart on the other stuff until I get an Nvidia.
Decision made. In order to avoid a separate Windows 10 install, I might as well go for the (hopefully accelerated) option of a Virtual machine running on CachyOS. Because if I can get that running ok, then at least I can run this stuff without installing two OSs. I know that technically Windows 10 is still a different OS, but as long as it's running from within the Linux OS then I still see that as a Linux solution, at least until I get an Nvidia card.
There's been stuff posted by bluejaune, Robert and TImberWolf. I've intentionally not done anything in that regards so far, meaning I've not taken any steps as yet to install a Virtual Machine. So considering that situation, what's the best Virtual Machine option for CachyOS that (hopefully) allows acceleration passthrough of an AMD card? There's a few options been mentioned so far, but for my setup specifically, I'm still unsure which option is most likely to succeed.
Whatever option that is, I'm ready to go full steam ahead with it, but really need another step-by-step, hoping I've not worn-out anyone's patience!
I've lost track. What were you needing Windows for again?
Really to get dForce back. DaVinci Resolve Studio is another I need to run, and from the sounds of it I'll need to run that on Windows as well (until I get an Nvidia card). From the stuff I've read in this thread, it think it's a losing battle trying to getting either of those running natively on Linux (while I'm on AMD).
This is all starting to feel a little dogmatic...
I don't think anyone will be able to offer practical help for this endeavour because none of us use a virtual machine with hardware passthrough on Cachy. Please go and read the 20+ page guide that Robert posted earlier (and it is just a guide because what steps you actually take and the files you have to code yourself will be different from those the author needed) all the way through. All of it, in depth, not just the first paragraph! Once you've got through that and are confident that you can manage it, your next task is to find out which of those debian packages are held and what they're called in the Cachy repos, or the AUR archives...
You are effectively asking us how to build the whip you wish to flaggelate your own back with!
I can't help any further I'm afraid. My answer is to dual boot your system and use an exFAT drive (can just be a USB stick permanently plugged in) to pass files between the two or just allow Cachy to read the NTFS drive. This is not the answer you want to hear and it doesn't answer your question. It will, however, work.
The only other option is to try Linux Mint and see if dForce works out of the box with your GPU as it did for Csaa.
You've rejected every suggestion we've made up to this point and, unfortunately, I've got nothing left. Good luck!
I'd say don't bother with VM. Note the the very beginning of that Github passhtrough tutorial. He uses two GPU's and mentions how you need two for good performance. Using one is possible but some very light googling reveals that the host might lose the video display entirely and then you need to do SSH or god knows what kind of shenanigans to get it back. Or you don't do passthrough and it'll be slow as molasses. Either way you're gonna have a horrible time. Surely this has to be the worst option for performance-hungry stuff like Daz Studio or Davinci Resolve.
All just because of no NVidia GPU? Just go get one. Don't know what the minimum requirements are but surely some used one will do. If that really is absolutely impossible then dual booting is the obvious choice. Native performance, easy to do with minimal effort, other than maybe having to mess around with boot loaders. If you ever get an Nvidia card you can try and get everything working on Linux and eventually ditch Windows completely. But it'll be there until then.
Not to mention, in terms "showing Microsoft" or whatever, a VM is just Windows again. Sure you can disable internet access, but you can do that in Windows too. Just disable the network connection. You'd more so be punishing yourself than Microsoft. They'll just laugh their ass off that you still need Windows inside of Linux.
Obviously they won't give a damn either way, but just to paint the picture of what you'd be doing with a VM
Here's a small thing thatt bothers me: when opening a scene in Daz Studio running through Lutris, as in File > Open, the size of that file dialog window isn't saved. And it's too small by default, cutting off columns. It's also all white.
Some options when right-clicking on the window title bar > More Actions > Configure Special Window Settings. Add property for position and size, set both to remember. Can't find a property for column width though.
@bluejaunte
The window size and position for that dialogue box persists throughout the session for me but it's lost when restarting Studio. I'm curious as to why this bothers you because I've never even noticed it before. This is what it looks like with the KDE desktop:
Often cuts off long folder names and stuff. Windows saves everything you do in there, i.e. changing the column width. I'm basically increasing the column size every time and it gets annoying. Not the end of the world of course, but small things like that stand out when you work with a thing for 10 years.
@TimberWolf
Haven't rejected any suggestion, although I see why it looks that way. I already did take a look at the link Robert posted, but it's too complicated and is not targeting the same situation as mine anyway. It's a dual card setup involving an Nvidia card. Under normal circumstances, having Windows 10 running on its own SSD would be a good idea. I have two physical SSD drives in this system, so it's dead easy to do, but I'm no longer prepared to allow Windows 10 access to the internet (at all).
Now with Daz Studio, it's not a problem. Because Daz Studio doesn't require activation and deactivation (I'd have ditched it for Blender years ago if it did). So at least I can use Linux to download my Daz Content and transfer it over to a non-internet-connected Windows 10 install, no probem. And if DaVinci Resolve Studio offers offline activation and deactivation, then sure, that would be the way to go (and I intend to look into that today). But if not, then installing Windows 10 to its own SSD would be a complete waste of time because, as I said, Windows 10 is not - repeat NOT - getting any access to the internet ever again on any system that I own.
@bluejaunte
Well that's a good one - "Just go get one"
Why didn't I think of that? :-D
Can't at the moment, but of course will do when the time is right (which certainly isn't now). And be in no doubt, I feel exactly the same way and already have shown Microsoft the door, no matter which way I get the situation sorted. It must be at least a month now since Microsoft was able to steal data from me.
Most satisfying of all, is they'll never manage it again on any system of mine, and that is what's called a 'set-in-stone' guarantee!
I thought maybe some cheap used one. Switch to instant noodles for a month or something. Sell the AMD card. But hey I understand perfectly well, I'm struggling a lott these days too. If anything in my PC dies I can basically close shop with current hardware prices. It's pretty tough for PAs all around these days.
To be fair, Windows 10 is an alright OS. The real issues started with 11. Anyway, how were you going to install anything on Windows 10, VM or dual boot, without allowing internet access? I admire your conviction but it does feel a bit... unreasonable, at this point.
Single gpu passthrough using Arch Linux and a AMD Rx580 https://www.musabase.com/2025/05/single-gpu-passthrough-on-vm.html
@bluejaunte
As far as I'm aware, running Windows in a VM would give me full control over whether I allow it access to the internet, because the settings of the VM itself can be set so as to prevent internet access. I've just been looking into offline activation and deactivation, but unfortunately, while the non-dongle version does allow this, it also requires ocassional access to re-confirm, and that re-confirmation requires internet access, I mean, what a completely self-defeating game of stupidity!
So I though well ok then, they're usually £50 at most, so I'll just buy a dongle and transfer my licence key to that. But no, all I can find online are DaVinci Resolve Studio Licences that are either dongle or non-dongle verions. In other words, it looks as if I'd have to buy another full licence just to get the dongle, which I'm obviously not going to do (and I prefer the non-dongle version that I already have anyway).
If there was a way to install Windows 10 as normal on its own SSD, but prevernt everything other than DaVinci Resolve Studio (and Daz Studio) from accessing the internet, that would be ideal. But the problem there is that nothing you do is guaranteed to stop Windows using the internet, because in effect, you're trusting Microsoft to terminate Wndows' ability to datamine, which of course it is never going to stop doing for as long as it has the means to do so.
Regards buying scondhand; the problem is you risk buying an ex crypto-mining card, and shortly afterwards find yourself looking at a very expensive brick.
@Robert_Freise
Thanks a lot for that, it's much appreciated. Still looks pretty damn scary to me to be honest, but nevertheless, since that one is specifically for my card, and CachyOS is Arch based, I'm going to give it a go. If it fails, then I'm going to reinstall CachyOS afresh and give it another go. But if that doesn't work either, then I'm screwed for both dForce and DaVinci Resolve Studio until I get a new card, and it's not as if I didn't try.
Will likely spend next week going through some content I purchased recently, but after that, I'll get on to it and will see how it goes!
I hate the call home crap that some software uses
Looking at DaVinci Resolve Studio activation I found this
DaVinci Resolve Studio does not require a paid periodic subscription update; it features lifetime activation via a license key or USB dongle for all major and minor versions. The activation key works on two computers simultaneously, and activation is permanent unless deactivated or if the system detects excessive, rapid, and conflicting activation
Cheers Robert, and if that's the case then that's excellent news and it's exactly how I assume it would work, but please see this thread with a recent posting date:
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=234588&p=1210819
Where did you see that information?
The bloke at the link is in a similar situation to me, in so far as, he wants his machines kept firmly away from all Internet connectivity.
I did a search on activation and that was in the first hit
I did another search just now and got conflicting answers some saying since ver 20 some saying not with e free version and not with a dongal
I contacted their support and asked. Now waiting for an answer
Cheers mate, that was very good of you! It'll be an interesting excuse they give, because it does sound as if something changed around version 20, which doesn't change the fact that what they've done is self-defeating. The whole point of needing an offline activation is because the machine doesn't have internet access!
No reply yet though it's probably a bit early for one.
I totally agree with you on the no internet access.
I've had MS remove programs in the past including my Daz Studio installation had a popup saying this program has been removed because it's not Microsoft approved. Poser and several video editors got he same treatment
Wow, never had that happen, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest considering the maker of the OS!
There's only one way to cure Microsoft, and that's to do what I've done, by ensuring their software is completely and permanently cut-off from the internet.
I can confidently say that Microsoft will not be installing anything on (or removing anything from) my system ever again :-D
You can't install Win 11 without being connected now. It no longer lets you create alocal user account. You have to use your micrsoft account.
Lucklly I installed it before they did that so I still have my local user account, at least until they disable it. Hopefully I'll have all my machines running Linux before that happens
Well there you go, no prizes for guessing why they made Windows 11 that way. I refused point blank to go anywhere near Windows 11, so I'm not fully aware of the levels of abuse being practiced with that one. Needless to say, when Windows 10 started making its AI fetish known to me, that really was the last straw!
Bad move on Microsoft's part, since it resulted in its parasitic umbilical cord (access to the internet), being severed once and for all.
Bye bye, Microsoft.
Bye bye.
Yeah Unfortunately I wasn't given a choice. When W11 first came out ther were a large number of us whose machines were upgraded autmatically / mistakenly due to MS's popup about W11 and attempts to revert back to W10 either failed altogether or were only partially succesful leaving only a clean install being the only option that might work which didn't always due to W11 locking access to part of the hd sectors sometimes
So I got stuck with W11 because of that and not wanting the hassle of reinstalling all my software again which presented problems as well.
You always have a choice. Linux!
Anyway, Im planning to try that link thing TimberWolf mentioned. Because if the other stuff fails then it's a very real possibility that's the way I'll need to get around the situation until I get an Nvidia, and as I said, what with moving home soon and the price of GPUs at the moment, I won't be ripped off like that and would rather wait.
I'm about to do this before trying the other stuff, but just to be sure, when you say "/where/you/want/your/files/to/go", are you referring to the shared diectory that Diffeomorphic uses to store the character in order to transfer it, or are you referring to generally any folder that I might choose to save my Daz files to?
I have a feeling it's the former, but thought I'd better ask in case it's the latter.
@3DIO
You don't *need* to do this. To reiterate, a Wine prefix is a collection of folders which contain a basic Windows environment. Any Windows application running inside that Windows environment is sandboxed - it cannot see any of the file structure that exists outside that sandbox. The reverse is not true. Any Linux application, such as Blender, can see inside the wine prefix because it's just a set of folders. They neither know nor care about anything wine related. Blender was never isolated from Studio-produced content - I think you just assumed it was.
At its core, Diffeomorphic is a native .duf file importer for Blender. It does lots of other very cool things but at its heart, that's what it is. You don't even need to save anything from Daz Studio - you can navigate, in Blender, to your Daz content and open the files directly if you wanted to.
The reason you might want to use a symlink to allow Daz Studio access *outside* the sandbox is that the directory structure inside a wine prefix can get a little tedious if you're using it a lot: /home/3DIO/games/daz/drive_c/users/3DIO/Documents can get a little annoying.
What the symlink is does is *create* a shortcut from wherever you like which will open a folder that *already exists*.
--
So, as an example, create a directory in Home and call it diffeo. Navigate to the c_drive directory in your Daz wine prefix, open the console (you should have an option along the lines of 'open console here') and type:
ln -s /home/3DIO/diffeo diffeomorphic
This will create a shortcut folder called diffeomorphic that Studio can see in its wine prefix that will actually use the contents of the diffeo folder in your Home directory. Note that all references to 3DIO should be replaced with your username. Now you can easily navigate to your saved content from within Blender without having to navigate that tedious directory path.
You should use this technique to access your Daz content folders as well, rather than copying them into your wine prefix because that road leads to tears when you, inevitably, have to rebuild your wine environment....
(Some file managers actually enable you to symlink by just right-clicking in the UI - I think Nautilus can so have a search and see if your FM is capable of this.)
Reference: https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-create-symbolic-links-in-linux-using-the-ln-command/