[BozemanLUG] Question..

[Mike Stone]

Thanks for the response Scott.  I'm sorry I didn't include what I'm planning
on virtualizing.  The answer is, pretty much everything.  I do Linux,
Windows (my copy of Windows 7 beta just finished downloading), Solaris (or I
would if I could get it to run in a VM), FreeBSD, etc.  Pretty much anything
I'm feeling like at the time.  Linux is definitely going to be one of those,
but it's also definitely not going to be the only one.

The hard part of this is that I'm using workstation hardware, and none of it
especially new.  None of the hardware that I've looked at includes any kind
of virtualization in the CPU, which shoots down KVM.  I've never tried Xen,
but the versions of Xen that I've seen are either Server side, which
requires a client console interface (which I'm trying to avoid), or a
Workstation type application, which requires full installation of a base OS
like Linux or Windows.  Virtual Box is the same thing (and is what I'm
currently using).  VMWare Server is my next choice, but I don't like the way
that the guest OSs are accessed.  I'm probably going to be moving to VMWare
Server, or ESXi, or both (on seperate systems), but I was hoping that there
might be something else out there.

I'm not sure what I want even exists, but what I'm looking for is something
that is as low level as ESXi, but with no real interface software.  The
vision in my head is just a key combination to switch seemlessly between
multiple guest OSs.

Mike

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Scott Dowdle <dowdle at montanalinux.org>wrote:

> Mike,
>
> You didn't really say what you wanted to virtualize.  If you want to do
> Linux on Linux then I'd recommend OpenVZ.  I'm very involved in the OpenVZ
> community and could answer any follow up questions you might have on it.
>
> If you are wanting to be able to virtualize any arbitrary Intel OS then I'd
> recommend:
>
> 1) KVM - Native to the Linux kernel (GPL) starting with the 2.6.20 kernel
> and ships with a few distros including Fedora and Ubuntu - requires hardware
> support for virtualization in the CPU
>
> 2) An alternative to #1 assuming you still have VT in your CPU would be
> Xen.  Xen can support paravirtualized guests or fully virtualized guests.
>
> 3) Then there is VirtualBox.  Doesn't require VT but can use it if it is
> there... and they have an Open Source Edition available.
>
> 4) VMware Server.  It's free and works well.  There was a major upgrade to
> the software a while ago and I think many people like the previous version
> better.
>
> None of the virt methods are as easy as using a KVM switch hooked up to
> multiple computers but they all work well.
>
> TYL,
> --
> Scott Dowdle
> 704 Church Street
> Belgrade, MT 59714
> (406)388-0827 [home]
> (406)994-3931 [work]
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