[lug] Virtualization w/Windows host, was something else

[Chip Atkinson]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009, karl horlen wrote:

> > I lost the thread and the subject
> > wasn't related hence my subject.  
> 
> that's ok, glad to pick it up here since it's sort of a separate topic
> 
> > In reply to the question about virtualization, I've had
> > good luck with
> > virtual box on a windows XP host and ubuntu guest.  I
> 
> good to know
> 
> > I haven't used vmware in recent months but the advantage of
> > virtualbox is
> > that you can take multiple snapshots.
> 
> in terms of virtualization, what do you mean by snapshots?  i understand the concept in terms of a backup but not sure how it relates to vms.
> 
> SOME OTHER GENERAL VIRT QUESTIONS
> 
> also, after looking at some online virtualization documentation, this
stuff appears easier than i thought.  i originally thought you had to work
a lot of magic to make an non virtual os host a virtual host os but it
appears you simply
> 
> a) download a pkg or executable (for windows) and install the sucker
> and fire it up
> 
> b) you create your vdisk for your guest
> 
> c) start up the guest and install to it
> 
> Q1]
> 
> simple. are these pretty universal install and config procedures for
> the plethora of virtualization options that exist out there today?
> 
> Q2]
> 
> i get the impression most of these options are pretty robust these
> days.  after all some have been out for quite a long time.  last thing
> i'd want to do is setup virtualization and muck up my system.  can
> someone confirm the *general* robustness of these suckers today and
> when and if something goes wrong, what percentage usually gets borked
> : the host, the guest, both, etc?  is it something you can usually
> recover from.  i guess i'd be ok if my guest got borked but i
> definitely wouldn't want my host OS to get hosed.
> 
> Q3]
> 
> when you install virtualization sw on a host, if you don't start up a
> guest vm are you still incurring a performance penalty hit?  i'm
> assuming this stuff is running at the kernel level, even in scnearios
> where from what i can tell the guest is HW virtualization.  if there
> is a performance or resource hit from a vm host not running any
> guests, how minimal is it?  does it eat up a lot of ram and cpu cycles
> or is some percentage say 90% only when the guest vm starts up?  
> looking for generalizations / rough estimates here.
> 
> Q4]
> 
> finally, as i reacquaint myself with virtualization, can someone
> clarify the virtualization networking term which is used to describe
> the scenario where you want a guest's network interface to look like
> it's on the same external lan it's host is connected to?  sort of like
> they're peers to the corp internal lan.  is that what's known as
> 'bridging'?  this will help me google come network configuration time.
> 
> i think the virtualization networking scenarios and terms are what
> confused me with virtualization a couple of years ago.  if anybody has
> a link to good explanations of virtual networking terms and scenarios
> that'd be greatly appreciated.
> 
> thanks
> 
> 
>       _______________________________________________ Web Page:  
> http://lug.boulder.co.us Mailing List:
> http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug Join us on IRC:
> lug.boulder.co.us port=6667 channel=#hackingsociety
>