Microsoft Says Linux Can Host Hyper-V
Hyper-V is a widely-used virtualization tool, created by Microsoft, that allows you to create virtual drives, network switches, and run guest operating systems on the Windows platform. At the moment, however, Linux guests don't have direct access to hardware and the Hyper-V root partition can only run the Windows operating system. Why is this? Because although Linux already includes support for Hyper-V, the current mainline Linux kernel does not allow it to run as the root partition.
But with a new series of kernel patches, Microsoft aims to, according to Wei Liu (MS principal software engineer), "create a complete virtualization stack with Linux and Microsoft Hypervisor."
What this means is Hyper-V would no longer need to run Windows as a host to Linux guests. This will also help bolster Microsoft's efforts to support developers using Windows Subsystem for Linux (both WSL and WSL2), which includes the Microsoft custom Linux kernel.
Liu also stated, "There will be a subsequent patch series to provide a device node (/dev/mshv) such that userspace programs can create and run virtual machines. We've also ported Cloud Hypervisor over and have been able to boot a Linux guest with Virtio devices since late July."
Read Liu's original RFC.
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