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My pipe dream
I'm a recent Mac convert and I've slowly begun to fall in love with the idea
that I can run great commercial apps side-by-side with some of the best open
source applications in a homogenous environment. I've even gotten used to
having to resort to software-based VMs when doing work which requires that I
have access to a Microsoft windows machine; however there are still plenty
of tasks which I wish I could do natively.
I realize that Xen is geared more towards server virtualization rather than
desktop virtualization but alas I can dream of a day where my fantasy comes
true. A day where I would be able to run Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris and
Linux side-by-side-by-side-by-side with little extra overhead.

On my hardware platform of choice today (apple hardware, obviously) 3 of the
4 are possible: Linux, Windows and Solaris; however, the fourth is not.
Has anyone successfully gotten such a setup working?

Regards,
Daniel
Re: My Pipe Dream [ In reply to ]
> that I can run great commercial apps side-by-side with some of the best open
> source applications in a homogenous environment. I've even gotten used to
> having to resort to software-based VMs when doing work which requires that I
> have access to a Microsoft windows machine; however there are still plenty
> of tasks which I wish I could do natively.
> I realize that Xen is geared more towards server virtualization rather than
> desktop virtualization but alas I can dream of a day where my fantasy comes
> true. A day where I would be able to run Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris and
> Linux side-by-side-by-side-by-side with little extra overhead.

> On my hardware platform of choice today (apple hardware, obviously) 3 of the
> 4 are possible: Linux, Windows and Solaris; however, the fourth is not.
> Has anyone successfully gotten such a setup working?

You are in luck - the Xen community is actively working on the Xen Client Initiative which will do just want you want - place a Xen hypervisor on a desktop and run any number of OS on your client device. The source code is available at http://xenbits.xen.org/xenclient and meeting minutes on the project is at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/Working_Group_Core_Hypervisor.

The plan is to release an object version of the Xen Client build to the overall community as there are still some issues with compiling the hypervisor. This version should be out this month, watch the Blog (blog.xen.org) for announcements on this.

Thanks.


Stephen Spector
Community Manager, Xen.org
stephen.spector@xen.org
(772) 621-5062
BLOG: http://blog.xen.org




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