23 Jul
2009
23 Jul
'09
6:53 a.m.
2009/7/23 Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org>:
On Thursday 23 July 2009, Liam Proven wrote:
The term has been redefined these days. Whereas that was originally an
accurate comment, now, anything that provides VMs in which unmodified
bare-metal OSs can run is called a hypervisor. There's a distinction
between "bare metal" hyervisors and ones that run as an application
under another OS, but it's largely an artificial one: even so-called
"bare metal" HVs actually run under a host OS, such as Linux in the
case of VMware ESX & ESXi - although the company vigorously contests
this - and also Xen or KVM.
Alas, the "pure hypervisor" which does nothing else is now largely a
footnote of history. TTBOMK there is no such thing for the x86. There
may be for some of the RISC architectures, which include proper
support for virtualisation, which is a half-hearted bolted-on extra to
the modern x86-64 chips. AMD's is a bit less of a me-too effort than
Intel's, but I believe that neither is as complete as the
implementations in POWER or SPARC, let alone IBM big iron.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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2009/7/23 Cameron Kaiser <spectre at
floodgap.com>:
I believe it's not only possible to get Mac OS X running under a
hypervisor, but even that it's easier than doing so on "bare metal".
I've not tried myself, though. But either the PC OS of your choice in
a VM under OS X Server, or OS X Server in a VM under the PC OS of
your choice, is as close as you'll get.
Innotek's VirtualBox seems to be the free hypervisor of choice these
days, but the small-f free options, TTBOMK, summarise as:
?- VirtualBox from Sun ("full" freeware edition or limited FOSS
edition) under Linux, Windows or Mac OS X
?- QEMU (FOSS) with KQEMU module on x86 under Windows, Linux or Mac
OS X - KVM (FOSS) on Linux on an x86 with hardware virtualisation -
VirtualPC on Windows/x86, or VirtualServer on Windows Server/x86,
from MS - VMware Player (can't create or edit VMs) or VMware Server
(on Windows or Linux) from VMware
Citrix (previously Xensource) Xen/XenServer (and VMware ESX) use a real
hypervisor. ?The ones you listed don't. ?Just because they provide
a "virtual machine" doesn't mean that they use a hypervisor to do it.
> >
VirtualPC was followed by VirtualServer, a server
> > virtualisation product based on the same code, but with added
> > support for features like direct control of a host SCSI
> > adaptor by the OS in a VM.
>
> Neat. Did this ever see the light of day?
Well, it was never released as a Connectix product - but Microsoft
did indeed release it, as a freebie even.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default
.aspx
Oh, bleh. I was hoping there was a Mac version :)
From MS?! Not a chance!