>>> They aren't that slow. Thing is, you're using QEMU, which isn't a 
>>> virtual
>>> machine, it's an emulator. Software like VMware or VirtualBox use 
>>> your real
>>> CPU instead of basically executing x86 code on an interpreter.
>>
>> Presumably that requires *very* specialised hardware though?
> 
> Not at all. VirtualPC is what I'm using on my destop. I run  it on my 
> laptop as well. VMWare (workstation) will run on any modern PC with a 
> compatible processor (virtually all of the intel and AMD chips)
> That's the whole point of virtual machines, they don't need specialised 
> hardware

But surely if you're going to run a guest OS on the physical host CPU, 
the host CPU would need to have hardware support for enforcing the host 
seperation?

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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> I've heard of plenty of VMs that run on Linux, but I wasn't aware that 
>> any free ones existed for Windoze.
>>
> 
> VirtualPC and VirtualServer are both free. I don't know offhand if they 
> will run *nix. I've seen some web sites that say it's possible, never 
> tried myself.
> VMWare's ESXi is free now, though that's a server-level product, not 
> necessarily something for a desktop. Should be able to run on a desktop. 
> Definitly supports Linus at lease asa  guest OS

I didn't say there weren't any, I said I hadn't heard of any. ;-)

Until yesterday, the only products I'd heard of where Bochs (only runs 
on Linux) and VMware (AFAIK that's extremely expensive). Oh, and doesn't 
Micro$oft now have some product that's just called "virtual server" or 
something undistinctive? Presumably that's a server product that is only 
available enterprise customers who've signed an NDA...

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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48bba91c$1@news.povray.org...
>
> But surely if you're going to run a guest OS on the physical host CPU, the 
> host CPU would need to have hardware support for enforcing the host 
> seperation?
>

I don't know how they work, but they can and do run on any standard modern 
PC.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48bba9d8$1@news.povray.org...

> Until yesterday, the only products I'd heard of where Bochs (only runs on 
> Linux) and VMware (AFAIK that's extremely expensive).

Mostly, but one of their server products is free now.

> Oh, and doesn't Micro$oft now have some product that's just called 
> "virtual server" or something undistinctive? Presumably that's a server 
> product that is only available enterprise customers who've signed an 
> NDA...

Yes they do, and if you'd read a few lines up you'd  have seen that. It's 
free. As in, go and download, no purchases or NDAs necessary.
I don't personally run virtual server, I get by just fine with it's little 
brother (Virtual PC), but it's not a server-only app. It does run on XP, 
though it's designed more for server-usage.
Then, of course, there's Hyper-V built into Server 2008.

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> Only trouble is... it would have to be a pretty damned big USB stick. DSL 
> is nice, but rather minimal. (Shocker.) KNOPPIX is 700 MB compressed, and 
> decompresses to something like 4 GB...

ebuyer have a 8GB USB stick for 14.09 inc VAT.  You could buy a couple of 
them, one for the OS/programs, and another one for data files etc.

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>> Only trouble is... it would have to be a pretty damned big USB stick. DSL 
>> is nice, but rather minimal. (Shocker.) KNOPPIX is 700 MB compressed, and 
>> decompresses to something like 4 GB...
>
> ebuyer have a 8GB USB stick for 14.09 inc VAT.  You could buy a couple of 
> them, one for the OS/programs, and another one for data files etc.

Or get this beast:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140327

(I didn't even realise you could get 32GB USB sticks now!)

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>> Until yesterday, the only products I'd heard of where Bochs (only runs 
>> on Linux) and VMware (AFAIK that's extremely expensive).
> 
> Mostly, but one of their server products is free now.

I see...

>> Oh, and doesn't Micro$oft now have some product that's just called 
>> "virtual server" or something undistinctive? Presumably that's a 
>> server product that is only available enterprise customers who've 
>> signed an NDA...
> 
> Yes they do, and if you'd read a few lines up you'd  have seen that. 

As I say, I couldn't remember it's exact name, so I wasn't sure if the 
virtual server you were referring to was the M$ product or somebody else's.

> It's free. As in, go and download, no purchases or NDAs necessary.

That's an... interesting move. Still, I guess if you have 100 virtual 
servers and they all run Windows, you still need 100 server licenses.

> I don't personally run virtual server, I get by just fine with it's 
> little brother (Virtual PC), but it's not a server-only app. It does run 
> on XP, though it's designed more for server-usage.
> Then, of course, there's Hyper-V built into Server 2008.

Until yesterday, I had always assumed that any kind of emulation or 
virtualisation solution would be roughly 1,000,000x slower than native 
execution, so it's not something I've ever been interested in. Hence 
it's something I know almost nothing about. However, since it appears 
that you can actually run real software at almost native speeds, 
suddenly it becomes far more interesting... ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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scott wrote:

>> ebuyer have a 8GB USB stick for 14.09 inc VAT.  You could buy a couple 
>> of them, one for the OS/programs, and another one for data files etc.
> 
> Or get this beast:
> 
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140327
> 
> (I didn't even realise you could get 32GB USB sticks now!)

I was looking at all this myself just last night. ;-)

There seems to be a rather big jump from 8GB to 32GB with nothing in the 
middle. Hmm. (And yeah, *I* didn't know they'd got that big now either. 
Last time I looked, 4GB was about the best that money could buy.)

But anyway, the 8GB stick certainly seems like a very reasonably 
proposition, and I am seriously considering such a thing. ;-)

As an aside, my current USB stick (which I always take everywhere with 

the postage was vastly more than the actual drive! Best of all: it's 
shiny. (You can actually see your reflection in it.) The cap is actually 


-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> However, the idea of being able to just plug in a USB stick and click an 
> icon and instantly have a complete Linux environment set up exactly the 
> way I want it is... pretty neat, actually. It's like I can just put my 
> life on a USB stick, keep it in my pocket, and never again find myself 
> sat at a PC that lacks a development environment. Haskell EVERYWHERE! >:-D
> 
> Only trouble is... it would have to be a pretty damned big USB stick. 
> DSL is nice, but rather minimal. (Shocker.) KNOPPIX is 700 MB 
> compressed, and decompresses to something like 4 GB...

...The *other* thing I've often wanted to try is making a bootable USB 
flash drive. But apparently that's really hard. And besides, a virtual 
Linux environment has certain advantages. (E.g., you can use the local 
HD if you want.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48bbaecf$1@news.povray.org...
>
> That's an... interesting move. Still, I guess if you have 100 virtual 
> servers and they all run Windows, you still need 100 server licenses.

Yup. But you'd also need 100 licences if you had 100 seperate physical 
servers, so it kinda works out cheaper to buy a single large server and 
virtualise several 'servers' onto one where possible. Save on power, 
cooling, space in the server room, probably on hardware. Plus most large 
companies will probably have site-licences so they don't worry about buying 
individual licences like you or I would.

> However, since it appears that you can actually run real software at 
> almost native speeds, suddenly it becomes far more interesting... ;-)
>

Most and almost.
I know that currently SQL Server isn't supported for production usage on any 
form of virtual machine. It may change in the upcoming months with HyperV.

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