Xen

[Colin McGregor]

--- Howard Gibson <hgibson-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>    I have recently upgraded my old desktop from FC3
> to FC6.  I have just installed the non-Xen kernel
> and rebooted the machine, and now my serial ports
> and floppy drives are working again.  It appears
> that my clunky old computer is _not_ having hardware
> problems.
> 
>    I spent the better part of a week trying to
> figure out why my computer could not access its
> modem.  This was not a pleasant experience.  I now
> have a hardware modem plugged into a USB port.  I am
> about to re-configure GRUB to lauch FC6 without Xen.
> 
>    What does Xen do for a desktop user who is not
> doing kernel hacking or other software development?

If you want (or need) to work with multiple OSs, then
Xen is your ticket. Keep in mind though that under Xen
you either need the other OS(s) to be aware that they
are running under virtualization or you need the CPU
hardware supported virtualization (the later has not
been available until fairly recently...). So, if you
have a recent CPU, you can run whatever OSs strike
your fancy, say, old versions of Linux, FreeBSD or new
MS Windows versions on your machine...

Is this worth the effort for a desktop user? Depends
... If your in a position where say you need to
ocasionaly run just one piece of old software that
only available for OS-123, but you need to run that
software badly, virtualization on the desktop may make
a lot of sense...

Colin McGregor

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