Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 10, 2007 10:28 PM
Virtualization is far from blah. For years I asked myself (having more limited access to information and beliving it not done yet) why software couldn't emulate hardware. Why couldn't someone write a software "computer" that intercepted and managed all of a systems hardware calls? Car sims do it, plane sims do it.. why not build a software emulated computer hardware stack? Low and behold, the average person's desktop computer is now so overpowered that anyone can do it. I'll take a go at the questions though:
- Virtualization is good for running an OS like any other application within your prefered OS. Need a windows app but don't want to stop what your doing and reboot the computer; boot the Windows VM and off you go.
- Virtualization is good for running a secure invironment which is always good with all the crapware infecting the internet. I boot up a virtual machine, take a snapshot of it (Ghosting would be the real world version) and check out whatever website I need to look into. If I pickup malware; restore the snapshot and continue on in seconds instead of hunting adware/viruses for an hour. If I look at a new application and find out it's not what I want; restore the snapshot instead of uninstalling which inevitably leaves crap on your machine and in your registry (if windows).
- Virtualization is good for collecting and exploring OS. I collect them like people collect baseball cards. I can install a new OS on a virtual machine without having to have more hardware, replaceable drives, complicated drive partitions or whiping out my prefered OS. There are a lot of free OS worth playing with.
- It's worth looking at on your desktop, check out VMware it's an easy to use introduction to the concept and currently my prefered method. Most desktops these days are far and above powerful enough to run Virtualization. See previous comments about testing new applications, avoiding malware infections in your main OS, collecting OS to explore. I'd also add that it could allow you to do other things (I've a Dos install to run old BBS software and for fun) such as install a customized OS for just what you want; want to try running a webserver, install Linux with just the requirnments for Apache, no extra crap to drain resources or provide back doors.
- You're average CPU is fast enough to run the host OS and at least one Guest OS at the same time. The guest OS runs as an application so it get's mixed in with whatever else your doing in terms of CPU time. You'll need enough ram to support both OS. win98 will hapily run on 256 to 512 meg ram and the average system these days floats around 1 gig ram so half or more is available to the host OS.
- Slowing down the system is the same as the CPU/Ram question. If you put this on a 300 mhz CPU with 128 meg ram then the main OS is probably already crippled (my toughbook 27 barely supports the installed OS with those hardware specs). Depending on the VM software (I've used VMware only so I can't offer experiencer with the other offerings yet) the guest OS (virtual machines) should run like any other application; when not idle, they use CPU time but when idle, they don't.
- The Kernel's virtualization modifications are for higher end virtualization. I expect that they'll be developed in such a way as to remain uncompiled or dormant on systems where they are not in use. If they become Kernel modules than they can definately be made dormant without bloat or drain on processing.
- I'd speculate that hardware virtualization was originally to split mainframes into seporate virtual servers, simulate hardware for hardware/software developers, simulate multiple machine configurations for research including virus/antivirus research. Once you get your head wrapped around it there are a billion wild ideas you can apply it too. Wait, I don't think I understand the question; do you mean virtual hardware or hardware specificly for virutalization?
- AMD/Intel are in competition and looking to patent everything under the sun (hardware patents are a little more acceptable though) so there's no way they'd work together for the betterment of computers as a whole unless one decided the other's aproach was the better way.
- I'm learning also that there are a number of different virtualization methods. Like anything, you touch the tip of the iceberg and you'll find out there's more to learn. If you find there's nothing more to learn on a subject, you probably missed a source of information.
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Re:Virtualization blah
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 10, 2007 10:28 PM- Virtualization is good for running an OS like any other application within your prefered OS. Need a windows app but don't want to stop what your doing and reboot the computer; boot the Windows VM and off you go.
- Virtualization is good for running a secure invironment which is always good with all the crapware infecting the internet. I boot up a virtual machine, take a snapshot of it (Ghosting would be the real world version) and check out whatever website I need to look into. If I pickup malware; restore the snapshot and continue on in seconds instead of hunting adware/viruses for an hour. If I look at a new application and find out it's not what I want; restore the snapshot instead of uninstalling which inevitably leaves crap on your machine and in your registry (if windows).
- Virtualization is good for collecting and exploring OS. I collect them like people collect baseball cards. I can install a new OS on a virtual machine without having to have more hardware, replaceable drives, complicated drive partitions or whiping out my prefered OS. There are a lot of free OS worth playing with.
- It's worth looking at on your desktop, check out VMware it's an easy to use introduction to the concept and currently my prefered method. Most desktops these days are far and above powerful enough to run Virtualization. See previous comments about testing new applications, avoiding malware infections in your main OS, collecting OS to explore. I'd also add that it could allow you to do other things (I've a Dos install to run old BBS software and for fun) such as install a customized OS for just what you want; want to try running a webserver, install Linux with just the requirnments for Apache, no extra crap to drain resources or provide back doors.
- You're average CPU is fast enough to run the host OS and at least one Guest OS at the same time. The guest OS runs as an application so it get's mixed in with whatever else your doing in terms of CPU time. You'll need enough ram to support both OS. win98 will hapily run on 256 to 512 meg ram and the average system these days floats around 1 gig ram so half or more is available to the host OS.
- Slowing down the system is the same as the CPU/Ram question. If you put this on a 300 mhz CPU with 128 meg ram then the main OS is probably already crippled (my toughbook 27 barely supports the installed OS with those hardware specs). Depending on the VM software (I've used VMware only so I can't offer experiencer with the other offerings yet) the guest OS (virtual machines) should run like any other application; when not idle, they use CPU time but when idle, they don't.
- The Kernel's virtualization modifications are for higher end virtualization. I expect that they'll be developed in such a way as to remain uncompiled or dormant on systems where they are not in use. If they become Kernel modules than they can definately be made dormant without bloat or drain on processing.
- I'd speculate that hardware virtualization was originally to split mainframes into seporate virtual servers, simulate hardware for hardware/software developers, simulate multiple machine configurations for research including virus/antivirus research. Once you get your head wrapped around it there are a billion wild ideas you can apply it too. Wait, I don't think I understand the question; do you mean virtual hardware or hardware specificly for virutalization?
- AMD/Intel are in competition and looking to patent everything under the sun (hardware patents are a little more acceptable though) so there's no way they'd work together for the betterment of computers as a whole unless one decided the other's aproach was the better way.
- I'm learning also that there are a number of different virtualization methods. Like anything, you touch the tip of the iceberg and you'll find out there's more to learn. If you find there's nothing more to learn on a subject, you probably missed a source of information.
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