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New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet)
ZDNet
looks at
a new release of Xen, a commercial virtualization system.
"On a desktop system, Xen virtualization promises to keep separate zones for test, work, personal and management software. So far, however, that promise has been hampered by a major weakness: the inability to display multiple graphical user interfaces for these "guest" operating systems.
Xen 3.0.4 changes this. By including what's called a virtual frame buffer, Xen's controlling "host" operating system can capture video data written to a specific part of memory and then send it to the display. The technology lets users see virtual machines through a graphical interface, a feat competitors such as EMC's VMware can already accomplish, rather than the text-based command line suitable chiefly for the technically proficient."
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New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 2:27 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] Poor QEMU. Since the article puts Xen up against VMWare (which are architecturally different animals in several ways), I have to pitch for QEMU. No, QEMU hasn't reached the "click and go" stage that the GUIs for VMWare's products have (and they are good), but it can:
It does one other major negative (as I alluded to above) for "enterprise use": it has very rudimentary snapshotting. But here's the QEMU roadmap:
But, maybe I'm asking too much of ZDNet to cover stories like this to any depth beyond the "Battle of the Corporate Press Releases" which still plagues the IT "trade journals"... I just hate it that, at this late date, the IT press has such "trouble" seeing with any depth the broader landscape of F/OSS offerrings. VMWare is really good proprietary software (one of the few that I've bought personally and reccomended professionally), but QEMU is also functional when you don't need all of VMWare's bells and whistles.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 3:17 UTC (Fri) by masuel (subscriber, #28661) [Link] I think QEMU will be getting a lot of attention very soon.
It the basis of the KVM http://kvm.sourceforge.net/ which is planning to
See
(...and should give a free as in freedom alternative to qemu own kernel
oh and its already merged for 2.6.20 ...
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 5:26 UTC (Fri) by mgalgoci (subscriber, #24168) [Link] Xen and kvm both make extensive use of qemu. If anything qemu benefits from the various virtualization frameworks that use qemu as a front end.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 20:33 UTC (Fri) by pcampe (subscriber, #28223) [Link] >No, QEMU hasn't reached the "click and go" stage that the GUIs for VMWare's>products have (and they are good)
The biggest problem with QEMU is that does not work with X86_64 architecture. Yes, you can compile it now (some months ago even compilation fails) but if you try to run a guest Windows, it will hang at the splash screen. It seems to me that the developer(s) don't think that this architecture is worth porting, so I can only use VMWare to guest Windows.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 21:02 UTC (Fri) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] > The biggest problem with QEMU is that does not work with X86_64> architecture. Yes, you can compile it now (some months ago even > compilation fails) but if you try to run a guest Windows, it will hang > at the splash screen. It seems to me that the developer(s) don't think > that this architecture is worth porting, Do the developers have such machine? How you have helped in getting QEmu to work on x86-64? Btw. QEmu and Xen are really not comparable. Xen is about virtualization, QEmu emulation. Those are not the same thing, although they can help each other. To get performance, virtualization is good, for things to really work, one needs (some) emulation.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 23:17 UTC (Fri) by pcampe (subscriber, #28223) [Link] >Do the developers have such machine?
We are not talking about a IBM S/390, you can buy a 64 bit AMD for the same money needed for a Pentium. Also it makes absolutely sense using a 64-bit machine for emulating a 32-bit system: indeed, it's one of the best reason for migrate to 64-bit.
>How you have helped in getting QEmu to work on x86-64?
I'm not a developer, I can only do a bug report, but I get no answer on the mailing list when I asked for a static version of QEMU, in order to use it on 64 bit machine.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 29, 2006 23:36 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] >Do the developers have such machine?
>>We are not talking about a IBM S/390, you can buy a 64 bit AMD for the same money needed for a Pentium. Also it makes absolutely sense using a 64-bit machine for emulating a 32-bit system: indeed, it's one of the best reason for migrate to 64-bit.
So buy it for them. You're presuming they have cash to spend on machines to fix your problem.
>How you have helped in getting QEmu to work on x86-64?
>>I'm not a developer, I can only do a bug report, but I get no answer on the mailing list when I asked for a static version of QEMU, in order to use it on 64 bit machine.
You can do more than just submit a bugreport. You can figure out how to compile it yourself statically and submit the resulting binaries to QEMU. Compiling apps isn't rocket science. Give back to the project, instead of telling volunteers what they should do with their money and time without donating any of your own. You'll probably find better responses from them if you do.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 30, 2006 0:34 UTC (Sat) by busterb (subscriber, #560) [Link] Are you sure? Debian has packages for x86_64 and powerpc. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/qemu
I know I've used it under Ubuntu x86_64. Maybe they patch it up - perhaps it was fairly trivial to fixup?
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Dec 31, 2006 15:06 UTC (Sun) by arekm (subscriber, #4846) [Link] Too bad that QEMU developers were not able to deal with CURRENT gcc 4.x compiler. There are Linux distributions that really use recent stuff and do not contains some old compilers like gcc3 (which is required to build qemu at this moment).
Bad for QEMU, bad for potential QEMU users :-/
Suspending? Posted Dec 29, 2006 4:16 UTC (Fri) by erich (subscriber, #7127) [Link] How about suspending?
If I'd run multiple virtual machines, I wouldn't need console sharing. I can always forward X11 displays.
However, my machine is a laptop, and suspending is essential to me.
New Xen better for desktops (ZDNet) Posted Jan 7, 2007 15:24 UTC (Sun) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link] Why don't they just provide some clear instructions on forwarding X instead of reinventing the wheel?
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