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#1 2004-12-09 21:01:12

skeeterbug
Member
From: Oklahoma, USA
Registered: 2004-10-24
Posts: 92
Website

xen virtual machine stuff...

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/

Has anyone worked with this yet?  It sounds on the surface like it might be a better virtualizer than any of the others that I've worked with including qemu, vmware and user-mode linux.  I think I'll play around with it and see but just wanted to hear from anyone that is also interested.

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#2 2004-12-11 06:53:15

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

I guess it depends on your use. Xen doesn't currently support many os'es, and it requires special drivers/modifications in the guest os'es. VMWare is one helluva useful tool for me these days, and I don't see anything out there with similar functionality as of right now. And since MS bought virtual pc, I won't touch it with someone elses 10 foot pole.


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#3 2004-12-26 12:22:35

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

Who cares if MS bought virtual pc?
Last time I tried Virtual PC, it sucked pretty hard, and was really slow smile

Anyways - this xen looks pretty intresting.
Too bad I don't have any computer faster than 266 MHz running Linux to test it on sad


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#4 2004-12-26 12:54:25

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

oscar wrote:

Who cares if MS bought virtual pc?

Well.... I do.
lol


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#5 2004-12-27 02:44:31

cjdj
Member
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: 2004-05-07
Posts: 121

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

I did some research on virtual systems a year ago, and thought I would point out that virtual pc and vmware go about it in slightly different ways.

Virtual PC was originally designed and built for the macintosh, and since they used a completely different chip-set from the PC intel architecture, virtual pc emulates the processor.   This is similar to the BOSCHS tries to do things too, and BOSCHS has the same performance hit (if you can keep it running long enough to notice).

Vmware does things in a slightly different manner.  Vmware is what is called a Monitor.  When you run a different OS in Vmware, it is running directly on the processor, and vmware just monitors it, and traps certain events to process.  This is why you would generally see a lot better performance out of vmware than you would with virtual pc.

We ended up going with vmware even though we already had valid licences for virtual pc.

There was a rumor that microsoft bought virtual pc because it wanted to use the technology to somehow provide a clustered database solution that can float on multiple servers...  I'm not really sure how that will turn out for them.  Quite frankly that sounds like a really bad solution to a data-bloat problem to me.   I feel that if you cant do what you want with a load balanced caching cluster, then you probably have a design problem.

But anyway...   Oh, I was going to mention that even thought virtual pc doesnt really support linux, another guy at work was running SUSE linux in virtual pc for some time.  he did complain it was rather slow, but it did work.

And, well, since I've written this much already, I might as well add some more info:
On the outside, virtual pc and vmware seem have very similar capabilities and options, however, even though both products presented almost identical features, vmware seemed to do a better job on just about everything I can think of right now. 

Vmware's menus and wizards were straight forward and not confusing at all.  Virtual PC menu's and options had me confused quite a bit, although I suspect that is because it was originally a machintosh product and I think the terms might be more recognised by mac users.
In both programs, When you create a virtual hard drive, you can specify that it be created in 'compact' mode where it only stores sectors that actually have data in them.  This saves on considerable space if you create a 10gb virtual drive but only put 2gb of stuff in it, then it would only take up 2gb of your real hard-drive space.  Virtual PC however seemed to take up about twice as much space in 'compact' mode compared to vmware.
In virtual PC, I mounted a physical cd-rom and installed some software, but then it wouldnt let me unmount the cd.  I ended up having to shutdown virtual pc in order for me to get the cd out. 
And finally, a really good reason to go with vmware instead of virtual pc is that you can run it on a windows machine and/or a linux machine.   

In using vmware, I have found that linux is a much better HOST than windows.  On linux, the virtual machines startup faster, suspend faster, and dont impact the system much at all.  In fact on my 2ghz laptop with 512mb ram, I have two windows virtual machines running under arch linux and I cant tell that they are even there.  On windows, it takes twice as long for the same virtual machine to load, and if the virtual machine is doing a lot of stuff I notice it on the host machine.

However, on the flip side, Windows is a far better GUEST os than linux to run in a virtual machine.   And this is mostly because windows is a crappier operating system, but it makes a difference.  Linux will end up using all the memory you allocate for it.  Windows doesnt tend to do that.   With a linux host, and windows guest with 128mb of ram assigned, I would end up using about 30mb of host ram for the virtual machine most of the time.   With a linux host, and a linux guest, It would give it almost the whole 128mb and would all be in use.  And graphics in the linux guest seem a bit sluggish.   

Overall I love using vmware, and I use it every day.   What I am about to try out is UserModeLinux, because I am hoping that it can be a bit less bloated than vmware for my linux guests.

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#6 2004-12-28 02:09:08

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

A friend of mine told me, that windows had a far better high precison pointer capability, and that would impact some on the performance - but I don't think I've ever tried using vmware in linux.

this means, that I have to install linux on my main workstation... big_smile


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#7 2005-03-13 06:38:04

nuopus
Member
From: Mesa, AZ
Registered: 2005-03-09
Posts: 60

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

oscar wrote:

A friend of mine told me, that windows had a far better high precison pointer capability, and that would impact some on the performance - but I don't think I've ever tried using vmware in linux.

this means, that I have to install linux on my main workstation... big_smile

Hardly .... I run vmware in both linux and in Windows ... and on Windows I much say that Virtual PC sucks so bad compared to vmware on Windows as far as performance is concerned.

If you have a choice of getting VMware or Virtual PC, get VMware as Virtual PC should be retired.

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#8 2005-03-13 09:31:10

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

Actually, before microsoft bought it, virtual PC had a linux system installer wizard and all sorts of linux support.

unsurprisingly, microsoft then gutted it out

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#9 2005-03-13 09:37:01

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

well, i didn't hear that they gutted it out. I heard they "stopped support" for it. They also likely halted new dev on it as well.

Anyway, I hear xen is going to be integrated into the next version of Suse (that is 9.3) due out in mid april sometime. Next version of fedora is supposedly going to have some type of support for it as well--although I am eager to see how they easily integrate that with selinux..


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#10 2005-06-09 14:57:38

k-dub
Member
Registered: 2004-11-12
Posts: 49

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

Looking at the Xen site, it doesn't look like it would be too hard to set up. Has anyone got this running yet?

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#11 2005-06-09 18:19:53

nuopus
Member
From: Mesa, AZ
Registered: 2005-03-09
Posts: 60

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

cactus wrote:

well, i didn't hear that they gutted it out. I heard they "stopped support" for it. They also likely halted new dev on it as well.

Anyway, I hear xen is going to be integrated into the next version of Suse (that is 9.3) due out in mid april sometime. Next version of fedora is supposedly going to have some type of support for it as well--although I am eager to see how they easily integrate that with selinux..

Actually ... they gutted it out. I work for a school that has academic alliance which allows me to install most microsoft software for free. Lots of students use Virtual PC ... and I can say first handidly that the new version has it all gutted. As a matter of fact, it is a shell of its former self with lots of stuff removed.

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#12 2005-06-09 18:36:18

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

Bummer. sad


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#13 2005-06-09 20:21:28

sweiss
Member
Registered: 2004-02-16
Posts: 635

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

I've installed VMWare 5 about a month ago or so. It is simply incredible.

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#14 2005-06-09 21:00:52

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

yeah. It is.


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#15 2005-06-09 21:09:44

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

Got anymore one-liners, cactus? wink

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#16 2005-06-09 22:44:55

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: xen virtual machine stuff...

How about this? "Get off my back."


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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