Computer on a PCI card

dsavage at peaknet.net dsavage at peaknet.net
Mon Oct 3 14:36:07 UTC 2005


> Good morning!
>
> Remember the SunPCI cards?  A whole computer on a PCI card sans the disk
> subsystem which was provided by the host???
>
> Well, I'm looking for the same thing but something I can drop into an
> Intel machine (Dell 1800/850) and run a second OS on.  I know I'm into
> blade technology now but I need to put this in a tower box.
>
> Can anyone point me off in a direction where I might find such a
> creature?

Brian,

All such cards have had limited capabilities and questionable
compatibility in many hosts. The problem is one of real estate (or lack
thereof): you simply can't cram everything from an ATX motherboard onto a
PCI card.

You would probably have far better luck running your guest OS in a VMware
virtual machine. To get decent performance in the guest you'll need a
first rate host: premium CPU, lots of RAM, and a fast drive with about 20
GB for the guest's virtual disk. VMware5 supports a wide range of
x86-based guest OS's including Windows, MS-DOS, Solaris x86, NetWare,
Linux, ...  See http://www.vmware.com.

Xen might be an alternative, but it's still developmental, is limited to
Linux guests, and requires the same additional resources as VMware.

--Doc Savage
  Fairview Hts, IL




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