Virtualization options to run the study OS
Wesley Werner
# Background
I'm asking this as one of you concerned about adhering with the FOSS
culture: What virtualization options have worked for you?
With the acquisition of Virtualbox by Oracle last year, it contains
proprietary code for some features [1], VMWare is proprietary as well.
I want to avoid these.
After some time using QEMU, I find it too slow and it turns out qemu
is a machine emulator only. I have since added the kvm module [2], yet
this does nothing for me. Probing the module (sudo modprobe
kvm-intel) yields: Operation not supported.
Yet my CPU does indicate VT support [3]. There are no BIOS options to
toggle VT, let's assume VT is always enabled, and my chipset datasheet
also confirms VT support. [4]
# Question
What other virtualization options have you found that worked? A GUI is
preferred but not essential.
[1]: http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/TechComparison
[2]: http://www.linux-kvm.org/
[3]: cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep vmx
[4]: http://ark.intel.com/products/33911/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E8500-(6M-Cache-3_16-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB)
Warwick Bruce Chapman
-- 083 7797 094 | http://warwickchapman.com
[Linux Studies Group - http://groups.google.com/group/linux-studies/about]
Wesley Werner
it's for dedicated hardware and I need a client for desktop that can
run alongside my existing system, i.e. "poor man's" virtualization.
For lack of dedicated hardware and the need to reference back to study
material and resources while using the virtualized system.
Thanks though :-)
Warwick Bruce Chapman
-- 083 7797 094 | http://warwickchapman.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Wesley Werner <wesley...@gmail.com>
Sender: linux-...@googlegroups.com
Thanks though :-)
--
Warwick Chapman
-- Warwick Bruce Chapman | 083 7797 094 | http://warwickchapman.com
Rodney Arne Karlsen
Wesley, what distro are you using? I found some rather helpful info
about using KVM on Ubuntu a while back in the Ubuntu Server Guide
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/serverguide/C/virtualization.html There
are GUI management tools for it that are packaged with Ubuntu, though
from my brief time trying them, they were not as friendly as Virtual
Box
Vincent has been playing with Proxmox and he seems rather happy with
it so far, though I was also under the impression that it was a stand
alone install. I haven't had a chance to try it out myself though.
Vince was also playing with some of the
OpenStack(http://uksysadmin.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/running-openstack-under-virtualbox-a-complete-guide/)
stuff on the weekend too which looked interesting, but might be
overkill for a learning/test environment on your home desktop pc.
That said, I'm still using Virtual Box for the moment since it's
pretty easy. I'm hoping to look at KVM and XEN a bit more closely in
the near future, as soon as I have a bit of time. Since Xen is now
part of the main line kernel as of 3.0.0 and 3.0.x will be part of
Ubuntu 11.10, I'll be very interested to see how things progress with
that.
Rodney Arne Karlsen
AKA SmilyBorg
LPIC-2, Linux+
Cellphone: 083 445 0720
Website: http://strangeminds.org/
MSN Messenger: rod...@strangeminds.org
Google Talk: rodney....@gmail.com
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute,
and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty
girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
That's relativity. - Albert Einstein
Wesley Werner
check, thanks.
The kvm module was indeed loading:
$ lsmod | grep kvm
> kvm 182533
a clue found here:
$ dmesg | grep KVM
> [258383.898235] kvm: disabled by bios
The option was hidden in the BIOS under security section, why there?!
Enabled VT (virtualization technology) after a cold start. Now we can
use qemu or proxmox (also kvm based).
# GUI
As graphical interfaces go, qemu-launcher seems like a simple start.
In the settings tab you change the qemu application references to kvm
to take advantage of VT.