I am new to Xen and virtualization has some things I am not that familiar with.
Now I know what Xen is and does, but what I am curious about are these things.
-
In my BIOS it gives me the option to turn on the AMD Athalon 64x2 4000 Virtualization feature. Why do I need that and how does it work with Xen? For that matter how does turning on the processors virtualization work in general, what does it add/do?
-
Now since Xen is a thin layer between the hardware and the operating system, will Suse be slower when I boot into it or when I run programs, especially 3D games such as World of Warcraft?
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Can Xen install straight from an iso I download? Or do I have to open the iso and copy the files to another location or burn it to disk?
suse amd64x2 adjusted his/her AFDB on Wednesday 22 Jul 2009 08:36 to write:
>
> I am new to Xen and virtualization has some things I am not that
> familiar with.
>
> Now I know what Xen is and does, but what I am curious about are these
> things.
>
> * In my BIOS it gives me the option to turn on the AMD Athalon 64x2
> 4000 Virtualization feature. Why do I need that and how does it work
> with Xen? For that matter how does turning on the processors
> virtualization work in general, what does it add/do?
>
> * Now since Xen is a thin layer between the hardware and the operating
> system, will Suse be slower when I boot into it or when I run programs,
> especially 3D games such as World of Warcraft?
>
> * Can Xen install straight from an iso I download? Or do I have to open
> the iso and copy the files to another location or burn it to disk?
>
>
Personally I would give virtualbox a try:
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox
I found it a lot easier than Xen to install and configure
It works for me with XP as guest, just have a read of the FAQ and such which
will explain a lot of the tech stuff.
The BIOS setting is to turn on special features on the chip which give
hardware specific extensions that deal specifically with virtual O/S`s.
So that it does not have to use “software” to do the grunt work which would
make it more CPU intensive.
You should not notice any slowdown at all except when running the actual
virtual host/guest software, on my couple of systems Virtualbox installs a
desktop icon that when clicked brings up the GUI to enable the different
guest OS`s and away you go, of course you have to install the guest to a
pseudo drive which is in fact just a big file in your home ( by default )
dir so make sure you have enough spare space and that is it really, with the
new 3.0.2 version you get 3D accel and better USB support.
As always YMMV but it works fine for what I need it for and XP just thinks
it is on a machine of its own.
HTH
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
Thanks. I will check out Virtual box.
So Xen or Virtual box would actually use the cpu instead of faking it. Nice. Is it the same for the virtual box and my 3D card (Nvidia 8400GS?)
suse amd64x2 adjusted his/her AFDB on Thursday 23 Jul 2009 20:56 to write:
>
> Thanks. I will check out Virtual box.
>
> So Xen or Virtual box would actually use the cpu instead of faking it.
> Nice. Is it the same for the virtual box and my 3D card (Nvidia 8400GS?)
>
>
With virtualbox you have virtual graphic drivers which will give you upto
128meg ram on the virtualcard this does give 3D accel I have not tried any
3D intensive apps but it does for me, i don1t think you could run COD4
though ROFL!!
anyway give it a try and if it does not suit you then it is only 5 mins
wasted ( Oh and the time to install/reboot/reboot/ad nauseum the vm for
windows )
HTH
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
baskitcaise adjusted his/her AFDB on Thursday 23 Jul 2009 21:07 to write:
> suse amd64x2 adjusted his/her AFDB on Thursday 23 Jul 2009 20:56 to write:
>
>>
>> Thanks. I will check out Virtual box.
>>
>> So Xen or Virtual box would actually use the cpu instead of faking it.
>> Nice. Is it the same for the virtual box and my 3D card (Nvidia 8400GS?)
>>
>>
>
> With virtualbox you have virtual graphic drivers which will give you upto
> 128meg ram on the virtualcard this does give 3D accel I have not tried any
> 3D intensive apps but it does for me, i don1t think you could run COD4
> though ROFL!!
>
> anyway give it a try and if it does not suit you then it is only 5 mins
> wasted ( Oh and the time to install/reboot/reboot/ad nauseum the vm for
> windows )
Small addendum:
After install make sure you are a member of the vboxuser group, just go to
YaST>Security & Users>User and Group Management and check there.
HTH
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum