[nzlug] VMware x Xen x KVM x Qemu

[Mark Goldfinch]

Hi everyone,

Papalagi Pakeha wrote:
> I'm playing with virtualization to get a better understanding of the
> many technologies now available for linux. And I wonder what are your
> favourites and why?
>
> <snip>
>
> Is there anything special and noteworthy about any of these
> technologies? Do you have any good stories and bad stories to support
> one one of them?
>   

I personally have been using Xen 3.03 with Ubuntu Dapper on an amd64
without hardware virtualisation support for some time now.  I recently
upgraded to Ubuntu Hardy and I've found a rather annoying bug in the
included 2.6.24 Ubuntu kernel and Xen 3.2 (see launchpad entry:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xen-3.2/+bug/204010)

Although I can't confirm it just yet my hunch is that there's a problem
with the Xen patchset integrating into Linux kernels 2.6.23 or newer
(XenSource themselves only support 2.6.18).  The 2.6.23 kernel had
32-bit only Xen DomU support integrated.

Having said that, it hasn't stopped me from using Xen on my beta version
of Hardy, I'm using the Hardy distributed kernel for Dom0 and a Gutsy
kernel for my DomU instances.  I'm quite happy operating within a
text-based environment, so while the VMWare interface is "nice" I don't
appreciate the extra overheads VMWare brings with it.

I haven't used anything other than VMWare and Xen however, so I couldn't
comment on KVM or Qemu.

Thanks,
Mark.