xen

[Timothy Selivanow]

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 16:25 -0600, John Thompson wrote:
> On 2008-01-18, John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org> wrote:
> > John Thompson wrote:
> >> On 2008-01-18, John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> I like to run xen-capable CPUs and this adds to the problems. First, 
> >>> with xen:
> >>> I like to use a framebuffer console. It's a while since I tried on the 
> >>> Dell so we'll ignore that for the moment.
> >> 
> >> Out of curiousity, what is the advantage of the xen kernel? I notice it 
> >> was installed when I installed FC8, and it seems to run fine, but why 
> >> exactly would I want to use it?
> 
> > xen is a tool that enables one to run several virtual computers on one 
> > real computer. For example, I can boot the Xenified kernel for F8 and 
> > the run Windows on that (with newer CPUs).
> 
> What advantage does xen have over, say, VMware? I bought a "hobbyist" 
> license for VMware many years back when they still offered that option, 
> and found it worked pretty well. 
> 
> -- 
> 
> John (john at os2.dhs.org)

Many and none at the same time :)  A better question would be "What are
you looking for in a Virtual Environment".  I've been using both for
quite some time now, although I haven't used XenSource, the commercial
implementation of Xen.  It also really depends if you are using your
virtualization in a commercial environment or just as a "hobbyist".

At work we have the whole VMWare Infrastructure thing going on,
Fibre-Channel SAN and all.  For personal stuff I use Xen because I
prefer Open Source, like the performance of para-virtualization (VMWare
doesn't support that yet, but they are working on it with IBM, RedHat,
and XenSource -->
http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/paravirtualization.html ), and I don't
use Windows.

If you do a google search for "xen vs vmware", many good articles come
up.


--Tim
 ____________________________________________________ 
/ An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.     \
\                 -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" /
 ---------------------------------------------------- 
  \
   \   \
        \ /\
        ( )
      .( o ).