[Fedora-livecd-list] feasibility of using xen to produce installed system images?

Jane Dogalt jdogalt at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 14 00:52:02 UTC 2006


In my project, I'm using qemu to generate system images as a non-root
user.  I've never used xen, as I have yet to discover as trivial a
usage of it as qemu provides.  (i.e. no configuration, a simple
commandline, and there you are booting a livecd in a window).  But that
may just be a matter of time.

I'm wondering if any of you, particularly xen leaning redhat folks,
have considered using it as a sandbox to create installed system images
in?  E.g. that could then be modified by a script, and rolled into a
live iso/usbimage?

I have suspected that even if xen can do this, I'd still prefer qemu
because I'm picky about the install system being given any access to
information about the host build system.  I.e. even processor type, let
alone access to the host build system's root filesystem.  (Yeah, I
know, it's building to qemu's hardware... for some reason I can accept
that more easily)

The main thing that qemu solves for me, as opposed to pilgrims
implementation of an alternate fedora installer, is the ability to run
purely as a user.  So one of my narrow questions is- can Xen do the
same?  I suppose its a rather minor quibble if you have to do some root
configuration of xen or something, but again, that's one reason why I
like qemu so much.

Then there is the news about this KVM thing, which makes qemu even more
attractive.  Although it sort of sounds functionally equivalent to the
non-free qemu kernel accelerator, for a limited set of hardware.
(though that still sounds great).

Anyway, forgive me for not reading the xen docs/faqs, but I'm assuming
I can get a better/quicker answer off the top of some of your heads.

-dmc/jdog


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