[QCLUG] Virtual Machines

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 10:39:58PM -0500, Chris Cooper wrote:
> As for Xen, it doesn't really compete on the same level as Virtualbox
> and VMware server.  Xen is probably one of the fastest of all the
> virtual machine apps, but it is a hypervisor (a lightweight linux
> distro who's sole function is to host VM's), and can't be run inside
> your main environment.

Yes - instead, you run your main environment under Xen, with a one-time
reboot.

> It is restricted to 64-bit processors only,

No, it isn't.  There are certain incompatibilities that prevent you from
mixing PAE and non-PAE guests/hypervisors (where 64-bit kernels are all
implicitly PAE), but there are 32-bit processors with PAE support and Xen
can also be built in non-PAE mode to support older 32-bit processors.

> and doesn't provide access to the guest VM's from it's console, since
> it is command line only.

Sorry, to what console are you referring?  With recent versions of Xen, it
should be possible to run your full graphical environment under Xen dom0,
and run other, non-graphical guests under domU.

It should also be possible to implement VMWare-like graphical guests using
Xvfb+x11vnc or vncserver, though I'll grant you this isn't as nicely
packaged as the VMWare frontend.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com                                     vorlon@debian.org