If your hardware doesn't support ESXi, I suggest trying "VMware Server", also free. It doesn't run on the "bare metal", but it does run very well and works with almost any Linux distribution:
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ I've successfully used it to virtualize WinXP systems in the past, specifically for Mac web developers to test on, actually. It has a pretty nifty web management interface. Dan On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 6:45 AM, Ryan Pugatch <r...@linux.com> wrote: > Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > > > > I find that Xen is great for virtualization of linux inside of linux ... > And > > for nothing else. In fact, whenever I have a non-linux guest inside of > Xen, > > I find Xen is unstable. I have a server with windows & linux guests > inside > > of xen on RHEL5 host ... and about once per month, xen will lose its > mind, > > and the memory of one machine becomes the memory of another. Solution is > to > > reboot all the guests and host. And yes, performance is terrible, except > > for linux in linux. > > > > For either linux or mac hosts ... Sun Virtualbox is a pretty good choice. > > It has some bugs here and there ... but it does in fact have "guest > > extensions" or whatever they call it ... So the guest stability and > > performance is very good. > > > > If you only use your virtual machine casually, you can't beat the price > of > > virtualbox. But if you use it all day every day, such as I do ... I run > > windows inside of mac every day, and I also run windows inside of ubuntu > > every day ... Then I find virtualbox is just simply too buggy and kloogy. > > > > On the mac, either parallels or vmware fusion is the professional way to > go. > > In fusion, you must remember to install VMWare Tools, and in parallels, > you > > must remember to install Parallels Extensions. If you do this, > performance > > is near 100%. I personally prefer fusion for performance and reliability > > reasons, but parallels is slightly more featureful. Both are good > choices, > > with neither having a large edge over the other in any way. > > > > On linux, VMWare Workstation is the professional way to go. Beware > versions > > though. Check the vmware compatibility guide. I find VMWare Workstation > is > > typically only compatible with hosts a rev behind ... For example ... > > Workstation works fine on ubuntu 904, but not 910. But by the time 1004 > > comes out, I think 910 will be supported. > > > > I agree that Linux inside Linux with Xen is good. I definitely need a > solution to virtualize Windows on a server rather than having the devs > virtualize on their local machines. I regularly use Virtualbox locally > and like it and have thought about setting up a server with a group of > headless VMs under it, but I am unsure of how Virtualbox performs in > that setup. Definitely looking for a server rather than workstation > solution so perhaps VMWare Server may be the way to go. > > Thanks for your thoughts. > > Ryan > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lopsa.org > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ >
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