KVM steals virtualization spotlight (ZDNet)

Posted Mar 1, 2007 12:20 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413)
In reply to: KVM steals virtualization spotlight (ZDNet) by mikov
Parent article: KVM steals virtualization spotlight (ZDNet)

> > Xen's paravirtualization is MUCH faster then anything else. Very
> > little overhead.
>
> Yes. So, practically speaking, it only makes sense to use KVM if
> you wanted to run Windows. For Linux guests paravirtualization will
> always be much faster.

Sure, if all you care about is performance.

If being able to conveniently and easily set this stuff up matters to you, KVM begins to look a bit better. Nice management also recommends KVM. Ability to run the latest Linux kernels pushes you towards KVM as well. I would call these practical issues, myself.

Personally I am running FreeBSD and Solaris in minimized windows at the moment (some research of the cousins going on here), and the effort of setting them up and tearing them down is completely trivial. As a (mostly) unpriveledged user I can install these things and launch them with shell aliases. Very, very happy with kvm here.

The video performance with 12 was kind of assy, but it seems decent under 14 now. (I'm relying on Debian packages for my installation, so I'm not on 15 yet. Yes, it was (almost) as easy as apt-get install kvm, try this with xen!)