[lug] Advice on Xen

[Nathan Berry]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 5:34 AM, Hugh Brown <hugh at math.byu.edu> wrote:

> pjr wrote:
> > I just got a new machine with a dual core VT compatible chip.
> >
> > I still need a few M$oft compatible products (hate to admit it) that
> > dont do well under wine, and I need complete compatibility. I have read
> > a bit about Xen, but there are things I am not clear about. Perhaps one
> > of you know the answers or can point me to a good place to learn more.
> >
> > If there is hardware not easily supported by linux (lets say a wireless
> > card, fingerprint reader or DVI output from the graphics card), can the
> > guest OS (lets say XP) still use those hardware components even if dom0
> > running linux cannot?
> >
> > Is there any modern (last 6 months) comparison of tradeoffs in the
> > various virtualization technologies? I am thinking of Xen, Virtualbox,
> > Parallels, etc. I can find older comparisons, but nothing recent.
> >
> > Also, how about tradeoffs between running windows as the host and linux
> > the guest, or vice versa? I wonder whether it will make much difference
> > to me which is which. 95% of my work will be using linux tools, but
> > can't live without those last 5%.
> >
> > Thanks for any advice you have
> >
> > Phil
> >
>
>
> If your primary goal is to get Windows working on a linux host, I'd go
> with VMware Server.  Parallels is a product for Mac OSX (though VMware
> just came out with Fusion).
>
> I was at a vmware dog and pony and they said that Xen does well with CPU
> intensive loads but that they do better with I/O loads (and then they
> proceeded to say that everything is I/O intensive and should use them).
>
> Hugh
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I have used VM Server and got it to work on my laptop, Dell D800 running
Ubuntu.  I can tell you that you have to get everything working in your host
OS that you want to use in your guest OS.  I got my wireless card, old
Linksys, PCMCIA, to work using LINUXANT and then was able to use it in my
Windows XP guest OS.  I was very pleased with what I could do between the
LINUX machine and the Windows machine.  My only recommendation is to make
sure you have ample memory to support your host OS as well as your guest
OS.  Once I got it all setup I was very pleased with the environment.


Nathan


-- 
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it - even if I have said it -
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

-- Buddha
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