[K12OSN] Software virtualization...opensource way?

[Julian Yap]

On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 09:57 -0600, John G Ruff wrote:
> Xen, for now, only runs Linux virtual machines (VM). http://xen.sf.net/

I suggest downloading the Xen demo boot CD.  It has a CentOS and Debian
(as I recall) image on there and gives you a quick feel about how it all
works.  There are other distributions out there like Xenoppix
(host=Knoppix, guest=NetBSD and Plan9) but I haven't tried those yet.

For a virtual machine to run, it requires support at the kernel level.
Therefore, there is current support for Linux, FreeBSD, Plan 9, NetBSD,
etc...

Now MS Windows as a guest OS is a different story.  How will we ever run
a proprietary operating system when we can't patch the kernel?

Luckly Intel and AMD are helping out and are heavily backing Xen (as are
MANY big name companies*).  Be on the look out for announcements of CPUs
with Intel® VT-x and AMD Pacifica hardware virtualization support.

This will allow you to run unmodified guest such as MS Windows.

- Julian

* http://www.xensource.com/products/xen/faqs.html
Over 20 of the industry’s major vendors, including AMD, Dell, Egenera,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Mellanox Technologies, Network Appliance,
Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, TopSpin, Unisys and Voltaire.