Re: [Nolug] XP over 7 on VirtualBox

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 9:34 AM, B. Estrade <estrabd@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 06:30:00AM -0500, Clint Billedeaux wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 7:54 PM, Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >>>> What distro do you like? Use that.
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks Joey, all this effort to host a linux user group, and you fall
> >>>> back
> >>>>
> >>> on..."what do you like?"
> >>>
> >>> See, I figure the Linux community probably has some interesting flavors
> >>> out
> >>> there that I could use as just the tiniest little boot OS so that I can
> >>> assign more RAM to the virtual machine.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Except that's manifestly *NOT* what you asked in your 13:58 email.
> >>
> >> Thus, "we" don't appreciated surprise and anger when "we" answer the
> >> question you actually asked instead of the question that you needed.
> >>
> >>
> > First, I'm neither surprised nor angry. I'm merely realizing the poor
> > communication on my part and attempting to emphasize how poorly I framed
> my
> > request by altering it. My apologies. Second, answer no more questions
> > from me. You have made it clear that I'm an ass and one who should do
> his
> > own homework.
>
> Clint,
>
> James has it right. It depends on what you want to do. Recently, I
> took a survey of VMS hosts out there, and some were using qemu on KVM
> to provide images to PAYING customers. It may be an options for you.
>
> To answer what distro, that might depends on what distro provides the
> environment that makes KVM most stable; this is likely your best route
> to the answer.
>
> I am sure there are many "tiny" distros out there that will support
> KVM, but stability is likely more important than strictly the amount
> of memory made available. Also note, it's not just about memory.
>
> Think about this; if you have a 4 core machine, you shouldn't run more
> than 3 images if you expect to have "good performance"; further more,
> the host OS treats each image as a very resource remanding program. If
> more than one of the images is doing heavy I/O or heavy networking,
> forget about it. Furthermore, even if you have allocated enough physical
> memory to map more than 1:1 to VM memory, you don't have unfettered
> access to this memory on the VMs because you are actually contributing
> to a great amount of memory contention on the host OS.
>
> Imagine 3 I/O, memory, and networking intensive things happening on
> each VM; the host OS has to manage what is sees to be 3 extremely
> resource intensive processes. Memory contention can be somewhat
> alleviated by pinning the VM process to a particular core, but that's
> just taking advantage of the locality of data. It doesn't address
> memory paging issues brought in by heavy memory use of multiple
> processes; it also doesn't address the bottle necks at the networking
> or I/O level.
>
> So, if you *really* want to properly isolate each VM image, you can't
> even use a host OS because it just gets in the way. You need something
> like Xen or hypervisor that serves as a very basic layer without
> trying to do it's own memory or process management (like an OS would);
> this still doesn't address the physical limitations imposed by the
> network or the I/O.
>
> I have used Virtual Box to develop locally and to play, but have done
> so only locally. I love it; but then again, I don't have to create a
> VM farm.
>
> My employer makes extensive use of VMs for development and testing
> purposes, and although they throw the best host machines and most
> advanced ways of properly managing the VMs for maximal performance,
> they still have issues from time to time.
>
> A long time ago, I worked for a group that offered a managed Citrix
> environment for Windows; we mostly used Linux and Solaris, but for
> Windows it was about all we needed.
>
> Anyway, my point is that it's not about just memory. No Linux out
> there will provide any VM environment with the sort of efficient
> underlying hardware managemnet because, frankly, the Linux kernel
> sucks at this.
>
> Brett
>
> PS: don't let people make you feel like an ass; create a filter and
> pretend like the world is free of old curmudgeons. You won't lose out
> on any actual technical answers, I can tell you that.
>
>
Thanks Brett,

I know you're right about the technical answers. Those with the most
knowledge and willingness to share it have very little time for certain
distractions. I appreciate your answers as well as those of Jimmy Hess.
 Even if I continue away from your suggestions, I feel like I have some hint
from your knowledge and experience to guide me toward other solutions should
my own experiments not pan out.

I do enjoy using VirtualBox though. It has allowed me to do a number of
things that have decreased my workload in the office I currently work in.
 Stability hasn't been a burden yet, but I wanted opinions and options.

I am curious about the points of network issues. I'm not running this like
a server/client virtualized solution. My machines actually hold the virtual
machine on their own hard drive and run it without any server involvement.
 I simply can't afford to bog my network down in that kind of traffic. I
also have backup copies of the VMs because as Jimmy pointed out, when
VirtualBox eats a VM there's very little you can do to recover it.

I'm satisfied just being able to get rid of the old boxes and put them on
new hardware without losing the software. We have stuff that can't run on
the machines the boss decided to purchase because he bought Windows 7 HOME
premium. A real handicap since I can't run them in the XP mode.

> >
> > Thanks.
> > Clint
> >
> >
> >
> >> --
> >> Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
> >>
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> >>
>
> --
> B. Estrade <estrabd@gmail.com>
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Received on 10/23/11