Natalia Portillo wrote: > You got the point wrong, I'm talking running WITH 64 bit hardware in a > 32 bit guest. > This is done in Mac OS X Leopard (kernel is only 32 bit) and Mac OS X > Snow Leopard (using 32 bit kernel not 64 bit one) by VMWare, Parallels > and VirtualBox, as well as on Windows 32 bit using VMWare (dunno about > VBox and Parallels, VirtualPC is unable to run 64 bit guests at all > even on 64 bit hosts), just provided of course, the hardware is 64 > bit.
Ah yes, Mac OS X too. Apart from breaking userspace, the other reason people stick with 32-bit host kernels on both Windows and Macs is the 64-bit device drivers often don't work properly, or aren't available at all. They continue to improve, but still aren't as mature and dependable as 32-bit drivers. This is also true of Linux 64-bit kernels - both bugs and unavailable third party drivers/firmware. (But less so than the other OSes.) So even with Linux people cannot assume dropping in a 64-bit host kernel is always free of kernel/driver issues. Marking this feature request "won't fix" is just a statement that KVM developers aren't inclined to support this feature. But there's nothing to stop an interested contributor having a go. I'm sure if it works and the code is clean enough it will be accepted. > VirtualPC is unable to run 64 bit guests at all even on 64 bit > hosts Are you sure? Microsoft provides numerous downloadable 64-bit guest Windows images, and VirtualPC is Microsoft's; they must be running on something. -- Jamie
