IM on a VM !

[deejayw]

My iMatch is out of date because my hardware wasn't capable of supporting the latest version/s. I am now running a modern Ryzen7 based machine but with a Linux (Ubuntu) OS. Given the hours of effort I have invested in my iMatch managed photo collection, and not wishing to repeat it with DigiKam, I am considering whether or not I can run a new version in a virtual Windows machine hosted by VMWare Fusion 12, or Oracle VirtualBox. It appears that some users have experience of IM and VM, are there significant limitations to the marriage ? I am aware of some VM pre-requisites for running 32v64 bit clients.
thanks in anticipation!

[Mario]

I use VirtualBox to test IMatch installations, on various computers.
The only problem is that a simulated Windows accessing all file system data via a simulated or bridged network adapter is not as performant as accessing the files directly.
You have to try it out. Keeping the database "in" the Virtual machine (on the Windows disk) is fastest and safest.
To access files on the Linux host, you'll have to use mounted folders or UNC network shares.

[Jingo]

Many years ago, I ran IMatch from a Parallels virtual PC on my Hackintosh... it worked quite well once you got past all the setup quirks, etc with network share drives setup for MAC OS to read.  I know I posted some setup on it here which should be similar to a virtualbox setup on Linux.... it is certainly slower than native.. but it does work!

[deejayw]

Thanks for those useful replies. I will be careful to choose a VM solution that allows (limited but simple) file sharing between host and client OSs, but in any case, as you say Mario, I think the iMatch environment will be more safely operated entirely within the Windows client. I was more concerned about whether or not iMatch would 'see' sufficient CPU resources to operate as new (AI) versions need. I think you have answered that question !

[Mario]

I give my VMs 4 to 8 CPU cores and up to 16 GB RAM to work with.
The VM disk is on a high-speed m.2 SSD, which makes things very snappy. Linux boots in 8 seconds, Windows in about 20.

[CollieDog]

My iMatch is out of date because my hardware wasn't capable of supporting the latest version/s. I am now running a modern Ryzen7 based machine but with a Linux (Ubuntu) OS. Given the hours of effort I have invested in my iMatch managed photo collection, and not wishing to repeat it with DigiKam, I am considering whether or not I can run a new version in a virtual Windows machine hosted by VMWare Fusion 12, or Oracle VirtualBox. It appears that some users have experience of IM and VM, are there significant limitations to the marriage ? I am aware of some VM pre-requisites for running 32v64 bit clients.
thanks in anticipation!

I've been using Imatch on a Windows 10 guest OS in Virtualbox VM for a few years. Generally, the setup is satisfactory, but I have encountered many problems along the way. Thanks to Mario's excellent support, I've been able to fix most of the problems. Mario recommends keeping the catalogue and photos inside the VM, but this does not work well for me. I need to keep the files accessible to my Linux OS and access them.

My data images are stored on harddrives (EXT4 format) installed inside by tower computer. The Imatch catalogues are stored on fast SSD drives, and the OS is installed on a dedicated SSD. My computer is a Core i7 6700 with 64gb RAM. In my configuration, IM is fairly slow but I can live with that. The main problem is that certain harddrives (mapped in Virtualbox so they will appear in Windows as M: N: O: P: drives are often "forgotten" by Imatch and the photos in the Imatch collection are marked as "offline". To fix this, I use the "relocate" feature which, because of my setup, is very slow, often taking 20 minutes to restore the images. Recently, this problem occurs every time I shut down the Win10 VM and restart Imatch.

I'm looking into how to fix this, but have not been able to figure it out yet. Much of the documentation and fixes re Virtualbox online are out-of-date, or simply incomprehensible to me.

For now, this setup still works. I occasionally use Digikam for searching for photos in my collection and querying my database to avoid having to "relocate" the drives in Imatch every time I need to find an image.

Imatch is unbeatable as far as I'm concerned. My problems lie in my lack of technical skill in resolving the "relocate" problem (probably something really simple).

I will use Imatch in a research project later this year and to select and annotate images for an exhibition of my research photos from rural north China.