Crazy OS experiment for the weekend

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend. I realized
the other day that I don't often use "my" computer anyway. I usually have an
SSH connection to a remote machine or a remote-desktop connection to
something or I'll be running some OS in a virtual machine. (I'm a long time
VMware Workstation user.)

The short version is like this:

My desktop machine is very fast and can hold 16 (24?) Gigs of RAM.
I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
on it.
The 64-bit Linux is just going to be the host OS. I won't actually use it
for much.
On this I'll install 64-bit VMware workstation.
My "real" computers (that I'll use) will all be virtual machines.

Longer version:

The performance of VMware is very good. I've played music, watched videos
and even played simple games. (I'm not a big gamer.) The experiment is to
see how well VMware does running my "primary desktop" as a virtual machine.
You can maximize a VM and run it in full-screen mode so it's not like it
should interfere or even be noticeable to me.

There's *LOTS* of advantages to virtualizing the OS that you use.

I can take a "snapshot" of the OS and restore back to that point in a matter
of seconds.

I can "clone" the OS and do some experiments. When I'm done I can throw the
clone away. Again - it only takes a few seconds.

It completely isolates the underlying hardware from the OS. I can change
disks, NIC's, video or even move all of my virtual machines to a whole new
computer by simply copying the virtual machine files. With VMware player I
could technically bring my "computers" with me on a USB drive.

Backups are trivial - copy the virtual machine files to another drive and
I'm done. All the paritition info, user accounts, configuration,
*everything* gets copied over. It's a "perfect" backup.

So what if an upgrade goes bad... not big deal. Simply revert the VM back to
a previous state. I want to install some software just to try it out for a
little while... I can create a "clone" to play around in or take a snapshot
before hand. Do I want to tweak my setup and try something that might
'break' the OS or mess things up badly. No problem... I can create a "clone"
to play in or revert to a snapshot if things don't go well.

As long as the performnce is there (which is should be) running my
main/primary desktop OS inside of a virtual machine makes a lot of sense.

philo · External Since: Feb 14, 2005 Posts: 218

Ezekiel wrote:
> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend. I realized
> the other day that I don't often use "my" computer anyway. I usually have an
> SSH connection to a remote machine or a remote-desktop connection to
> something or I'll be running some OS in a virtual machine. (I'm a long time
> VMware Workstation user.)
>
>
> The short version is like this:
>
> My desktop machine is very fast and can hold 16 (24?) Gigs of RAM.
> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
> on it.
> The 64-bit Linux is just going to be the host OS. I won't actually use it
> for much.
> On this I'll install 64-bit VMware workstation.
> My "real" computers (that I'll use) will all be virtual machines.
>
>
> Longer version:
>
> The performance of VMware is very good. I've played music, watched videos
> and even played simple games. (I'm not a big gamer.) The experiment is to
> see how well VMware does running my "primary desktop" as a virtual machine.
> You can maximize a VM and run it in full-screen mode so it's not like it
> should interfere or even be noticeable to me.
>
> There's *LOTS* of advantages to virtualizing the OS that you use.
>
> I can take a "snapshot" of the OS and restore back to that point in a matter
> of seconds.
>
> I can "clone" the OS and do some experiments. When I'm done I can throw the
> clone away. Again - it only takes a few seconds.
>
> It completely isolates the underlying hardware from the OS. I can change
> disks, NIC's, video or even move all of my virtual machines to a whole new
> computer by simply copying the virtual machine files. With VMware player I
> could technically bring my "computers" with me on a USB drive.
>
> Backups are trivial - copy the virtual machine files to another drive and
> I'm done. All the paritition info, user accounts, configuration,
> *everything* gets copied over. It's a "perfect" backup.
>
> So what if an upgrade goes bad... not big deal. Simply revert the VM back to
> a previous state. I want to install some software just to try it out for a
> little while... I can create a "clone" to play around in or take a snapshot
> before hand. Do I want to tweak my setup and try something that might
> 'break' the OS or mess things up badly. No problem... I can create a "clone"
> to play in or revert to a snapshot if things don't go well.
>
> As long as the performnce is there (which is should be) running my
> main/primary desktop OS inside of a virtual machine makes a lot of sense.
>
>
>
>

Looks like a good idea...

I've always found that the guest OS takes a performance hit...
but with the specs of your machine it may be trivial.

Please post back and let us know how it works out

Ezekiel · External Since: Jul 03, 2009 Posts: 75

"philo" <philo RemoveThis @privacy.net> wrote in message
news:aKGdnfb7Up4XPGnXnZ2dnUVZ_gNi4p2d@ntd.net...
> Ezekiel wrote:
>> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend. I
>> realized the other day that I don't often use "my" computer anyway. I
>> usually have an SSH connection to a remote machine or a remote-desktop
>> connection to something or I'll be running some OS in a virtual machine.
>> (I'm a long time VMware Workstation user.)
>>
>>
>> The short version is like this:
>>
>> My desktop machine is very fast and can hold 16 (24?) Gigs of RAM.
>> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit
>> Linux on it.
>> The 64-bit Linux is just going to be the host OS. I won't actually
>> use it for much.
>> On this I'll install 64-bit VMware workstation.
>> My "real" computers (that I'll use) will all be virtual machines.
>>
>>
>> Longer version:
>>
>> The performance of VMware is very good. I've played music, watched
>> videos and even played simple games. (I'm not a big gamer.) The
>> experiment is to see how well VMware does running my "primary desktop"
>> as a virtual machine. You can maximize a VM and run it in full-screen
>> mode so it's not like it should interfere or even be noticeable to me.
>>
>> There's *LOTS* of advantages to virtualizing the OS that you use.
>>
>> I can take a "snapshot" of the OS and restore back to that point in a
>> matter of seconds.
>>
>> I can "clone" the OS and do some experiments. When I'm done I can throw
>> the clone away. Again - it only takes a few seconds.
>>
>> It completely isolates the underlying hardware from the OS. I can change
>> disks, NIC's, video or even move all of my virtual machines to a whole
>> new computer by simply copying the virtual machine files. With VMware
>> player I could technically bring my "computers" with me on a USB drive.
>>
>> Backups are trivial - copy the virtual machine files to another drive
>> and I'm done. All the paritition info, user accounts, configuration,
>> *everything* gets copied over. It's a "perfect" backup.
>>
>> So what if an upgrade goes bad... not big deal. Simply revert the VM
>> back to a previous state. I want to install some software just to try it
>> out for a little while... I can create a "clone" to play around in or
>> take a snapshot before hand. Do I want to tweak my setup and try
>> something that might 'break' the OS or mess things up badly. No
>> problem... I can create a "clone" to play in or revert to a snapshot if
>> things don't go well.
>>
>> As long as the performnce is there (which is should be) running my
>> main/primary desktop OS inside of a virtual machine makes a lot of
>> sense.
>>
>>
>>
>
> Looks like a good idea...
>
> I've always found that the guest OS takes a performance hit...
> but with the specs of your machine it may be trivial.
>
>
> Please post back and let us know how it works out

A few years ago this probably would have been impractical to do. But now
CPU's are a lot faster and they support virtualization right in hardware.
Memory is also cheaper now than ever before so I can load up my machine
with 16-Gigs and run multiple VM's and dedicate a full 4-gigs to each one.

VMware also lets me overcommit memory so even if the 64-bit host has
16-Gigs.... I can run 4-6 VMs with 4-Gigs of RAM each and it'll allocate
memory to each one as needed.

My system hardware should be able to handle it - the question is how well.
The wife and kids will be gone part of the weekend so I'll have some alone
time to mess around and try it out. I'm curious how well it'll work. I've
mostly been running Win7 on the machine but all the HDDs are in removable
bays:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054

so swapping things around is trivial to do. I'm happy with my hardware but
the only thing I'd consider switching is to get a 10k RPM drive instead of
the 7200 RPM. It's just something to think about if I go the virtualization
route.

Ruel Smith · External Since: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 503

Ezekiel <not-zeke RemoveThis @the-zeke.com> said on 2009-11-06:
>
> The short version is like this:
>
> My desktop machine is very fast and can hold 16 (24?) Gigs of RAM.
> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
> on it.
> The 64-bit Linux is just going to be the host OS. I won't actually use it
> for much.
> On this I'll install 64-bit VMware workstation.
> My "real" computers (that I'll use) will all be virtual machines.
>

With 16G of memory, your guest OS should have plenty allocated to
function pretty darn well. While you are experimenting, try this -
allocate 512MB memory to your guest to begin and just use your regular
applications once. After a few minutes, close all applications and
stop the guest. Allocate more memory and notice the differences. If
your guest is also a Linux, compile an application from source and see
how everything works. Compile the application again in a different
location with improved memory.

With increase in memory, we can obviously see a difference in
application startup and performance. But after a certain amount of
allocation, say 2GB memory, you may not see any appreciable increase
in performance.

When backing up guest OS, also back up configuration settings
that you may modify on the host OS

philo · External Since: Feb 14, 2005 Posts: 218

Ezekiel wrote:
> "philo" <philo RemoveThis @privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:aKGdnfb7Up4XPGnXnZ2dnUVZ_gNi4p2d@ntd.net...
>> Ezekiel wrote:
>>> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend. I
>>> realized the other day that I don't often use "my" computer anyway. I
>>> usually have an SSH connection to a remote machine or a remote-desktop
>>> connection to something or I'll be running some OS in a virtual machine.
>>> (I'm a long time VMware Workstation user.)
>>>

<snipped for brevity>

>
> A few years ago this probably would have been impractical to do. But now
> CPU's are a lot faster and they support virtualization right in hardware.
> Memory is also cheaper now than ever before so I can load up my machine
> with 16-Gigs and run multiple VM's and dedicate a full 4-gigs to each one.
>
> VMware also lets me overcommit memory so even if the 64-bit host has
> 16-Gigs.... I can run 4-6 VMs with 4-Gigs of RAM each and it'll allocate
> memory to each one as needed.
>
> My system hardware should be able to handle it - the question is how well.
> The wife and kids will be gone part of the weekend so I'll have some alone
> time to mess around and try it out. I'm curious how well it'll work. I've
> mostly been running Win7 on the machine but all the HDDs are in removable
> bays:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054
>
> so swapping things around is trivial to do. I'm happy with my hardware but
> the only thing I'd consider switching is to get a 10k RPM drive instead of
> the 7200 RPM. It's just something to think about if I go the virtualization
> route.
>
>
>

Well...
most of my machines have removable drives
and between all my machines I have about 25 different installations
of various operating systems

Never fooled around much with virtual machines

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"philo" <philo.TakeThisOut@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:a_ednd2gybmL2WjXnZ2dnUVZ_j9i4p2d@ntd.net...
> Ezekiel wrote:

(snip for space)

>> My system hardware should be able to handle it - the question is how
>> well. The wife and kids will be gone part of the weekend so I'll have
>> some alone time to mess around and try it out. I'm curious how well it'll
>> work. I've mostly been running Win7 on the machine but all the HDDs are
>> in removable bays:
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054
>>
>> so swapping things around is trivial to do. I'm happy with my hardware
>> but the only thing I'd consider switching is to get a 10k RPM drive
>> instead of the 7200 RPM. It's just something to think about if I go the
>> virtualization route.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Well...
> most of my machines have removable drives
> and between all my machines I have about 25 different installations
> of various operating systems

I find that I don't swap the drives very often. For "big" projects it's
great but for most things it's more convenient to just fire up a VM.
Otherwise there's always something on a 'different' drive that I can't
access without the shutdown/swap-drives/reboot cycle. With VM's I can just
power it up as if I were running an app.

> Never fooled around much with virtual machines

It's actually pretty cool stuff. The technology is getting really good. I've
always found it neat watching an entire OS boot inside of a window.

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"Ruel Smith" <NoWay.DeleteThis@NoWhere.com> wrote in message
news:hd2utj$29r$3@news.eternal-september.org...
> Ezekiel <not-zeke.DeleteThis@the-zeke.com> said on 2009-11-06:
>>
>> The short version is like this:
>>
>> My desktop machine is very fast and can hold 16 (24?) Gigs of RAM.
>> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit
>> Linux
>> on it.
>> The 64-bit Linux is just going to be the host OS. I won't actually use
>> it
>> for much.
>> On this I'll install 64-bit VMware workstation.
>> My "real" computers (that I'll use) will all be virtual machines.
>>
>
> With 16G of memory, your guest OS should have plenty allocated to
> function pretty darn well.

For the record - my machine only has 8-Gigs of memory. The max for my
motherboard is listed as 16/24 Gig.

> While you are experimenting, try this -
> allocate 512MB memory to your guest to begin and just use your regular
> applications once. After a few minutes, close all applications and
> stop the guest. Allocate more memory and notice the differences. If
> your guest is also a Linux, compile an application from source and see
> how everything works. Compile the application again in a different
> location with improved memory.

Did it - see my other post.

> With increase in memory, we can obviously see a difference in
> application startup and performance. But after a certain amount of
> allocation, say 2GB memory, you may not see any appreciable increase
> in performance.

The result was not what I expected - see my other post.

> When backing up guest OS, also back up configuration settings
> that you may modify on the host OS

All the config settings are also stored in files in the same directory as
the virtual disk files. Everything about a VM (settings, memory, NIC, CPU's,
disk-drives, etc) is contained within a single directory. As long as I copy
the directory I have everything there is for the VM. (** Exception being
"clones" because the clone references files from the original VM that it was
cloned from. (There's also linked and full clones.) )

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"Ezekiel" <not-zeke DeleteThis @the-zeke.com> wrote in message
news:hd26gl$m4o$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend.

VMWare workstation install was a breeze. Answer a few questions, paste in my
license key and it's ready to go.

The first VM I installed was Windows 7 Ultimate. The OS, updates and VMware
tools installed in about 20 minutes. It was faster than the DVD install
because I ripped to DVD to an ISO image and installed from that rather than
a physical DVD drive.

The configuration for Win7 is Dual Cpus and 2-Gigs RAM and 40-Gig HDD.
Time to boot the VM is about 30 seconds to the full desktop. (Currently it
skips the login screen and goes right to the desktop)

When I "maximize" the VM window the Windows desktop takes over one entire
monitor (1280x1024). I get the full Aero effects and things run really
smooth.

The important test for me was the sample HD video file "Wildlife" that's a
64 second HD video. It ships with Win7 to showcase the media player and the
clarity and quality of the video is excellent. It's a great HD sample video
which is why MS includes it.

The video plays back very, very well. About 1 in 5 times it skips a couple
of frames in the same place but 4 out of 5 times it plays the video
perfectly inside of the VM. This is a HD video so it's a good tough video
test. When the video is playing Windows reports 50-60% CPU usage and System
Monitor in Ubuntu is reporting low 70% CPU usage.

The "Windows Experience" report comes back as:

Component Details Subscore

DUAL CPU
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz - 6.5
Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB - 5.8
Graphics VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM) - 5.2
Gaming graphics 256 MB Total available graphics memory - 4.8
Primary hard disk 32GB Free (40GB Total) - 6.6

Base score 4.8 (Determined by lowest subscore)

The base score (lowest one) is 4.8 but that's for the "Gaming graphics"
experience which isn't a big issue for me. The regular graphics was reported
at 5.2 and memory, CPU and HD were all really good. Running "full screen"
(on a full monitor) works really well. I can certainly detect a difference
between running in the VM and running Win7 natively but the difference is
minor. It runs really well.

The full "system report" is:

Windows 7 Ultimate

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manufacturer VMware, Inc.
Model VMware Virtual Platform
Total amount of system memory 2.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total size of hard disk(s) 40 GB
Disk partition (C Smile

32 GB Free (40 GB Total)
Media drive (D Smile

CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Display adapter type VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)
Total available graphics memory 256 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 256 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 0 MB
Display adapter driver version 7.14.1.31
Primary monitor resolution 1280x1024
DirectX version DirectX 9.0 or better

Network
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Network Adapter Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"Ezekiel" <not-zeke.RemoveThis@the-zeke.com> wrote in message
news:hd26gl$m4o$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend.

Next I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.10 from an ISO image. I lost track
of install time but it was somewhere a little over 15 minutes.

I only allocated a single CPU to this VM and ran some tests with varying
amounts of RAM. The results are surprising. I timed bootup time (to the
login screen - not desktop) and this was timed using my watch. The
"configure and make" tests were run from the CLI using "time" for timing.
From the login screen to a desktop takes about 6-7 seconds.

For the test I downloaded and untarred motion-3.2.11.1 which is video motion
detection software that I already use. I've included both the "configure"
and "make" times:

** 2 GIG 1 CPU **

Login screen 23 seconds

motion-3.2.11.1

time ./configure
real 0m11.709s
user 0m1.420s
sys 0m9.661s

time make
real 0m7.162s
user 0m4.268s
sys 0m2.740s

** 1 GIG 1 CPU **

Login screen 23 seconds
Desktop 6-7 seconds

time ./configure
real 0m6.460s
user 0m1.544s
sys 0m4.404s

time make
real 0m5.773s
user 0m4.644s
sys 0m0.988s

** 512 Meg 1 CPU **

Login screen 18 seconds

time ./configure
real 0m6.216s
user 0m1.640s
sys 0m4.252s

time make
real 0m5.710s
user 0m4.164s
sys 0m1.460s

After the less RAM tests ran faster I went back again to the 2-Gig setup and
timed it a second time. The numbers are correct.

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"Ezekiel" <not-zeke.RemoveThis@the-zeke.com> wrote in message
news:hd26gl$m4o$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend.

Both VM's (Ubuntu and Win7) resize/reset the screen resolution when I resize
the VM window. So when I maximize the VM window it takes over one entire
monitor (no window borders) and the resolution is a full 1280x1024. Both run
really, really well and you really can't complain about performance. With
Win7 I still get all of the full Aero effects and it runs "almost" as well
as Win7 natively.

In both 9.10 and Win7 the scroll-wheel in my mouse works perfectly in the
VM. I can use the scroll-wheel to scroll apps and documents inside of a VM
with no problem. Sound works perfectly. (There is a bug in VMware that it
complains about needing Alsa 1.16 and that I have 1.15 but it still plays
sound from the VM's without any problems.)

There a bug in the 64-bit NVidia drivers. The VM's worked fine but I was
getting strange screen corruption (mostly artifacts) when typing in console,
the address-bar in Firefox and menus. (Menu items would randomly remain
highlighted after the mouse passed over them.) I found that if I completely
turned off "Desktop Effects" then all of the corruption went away. The
corruption never happened in the VM - but in the 64-bit host OS.

I just clicked around in the Ubuntu 9.10 VM and it's really F'n fast. If you
put someone behind the computer there is no way they would ever suspect that
this is all running virtualized. Running Firefox, OpenOffice, etc. is crazy
fast. Super crazy-fast if you consider that it's actually running
virtualized.

Just now I maximized the Win7 VM on my left monitor and the Ubuntu 9.10 VM
on the right monitor. Each OS took over the entire monitor and they run
great. I can simply move the mouse from one monitor to the other and I'm
instantly running either OS.

My machine isn't super crazy powerful. I built it earlier this year and if I
waited 4-6 more months I could have built an i7 based machine which would be
even faster. But it's a fast core-2 Duo with 8-Gigs of RAM and it's able to
handle this task remarkably well.

I suspect that there wouldn't be any difference using 64-bit Suse, or 64-bit
CentOS over 64-bit Ubuntu for the host OS. They all run the same kernel and
video drivers so there probably wouldn't be any noticeable difference
between them.

John Fuhrer · External Since: Nov 03, 2009 Posts: 76

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 13:44:56 -0500, Ezekiel wrote:

> "Ezekiel" <not-zeke.TakeThisOut@the-zeke.com> wrote in message
> news:hd26gl$m4o$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>> I'm thinking of doing an intersting OS experiment this weekend.
>
> Both VM's (Ubuntu and Win7) resize/reset the screen resolution when I resize
> the VM window. So when I maximize the VM window it takes over one entire
> monitor (no window borders) and the resolution is a full 1280x1024. Both run
> really, really well and you really can't complain about performance. With
> Win7 I still get all of the full Aero effects and it runs "almost" as well
> as Win7 natively.

It's amazing how far the VM technology has come.

bbgruff · External Since: May 26, 2005 Posts: 60

Ezekiel wrote:

> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
> on it.

I'm following all this avidly, and thanks for troubling to post. It all
really is a gob-smacking illustration of how far virualisation has come.

Probably me and my lack of reading skills, but have you actually told us
what you are using for the *host* OS?

TIA Smile

Ezekiel · External Since: Jul 03, 2009 Posts: 75

"bbgruff" <bbgruff DeleteThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7lm898F3ej44aU1@mid.individual.net...
> Ezekiel wrote:
>
>> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
>> on it.
>
> I'm following all this avidly, and thanks for troubling to post. It all
> really is a gob-smacking illustration of how far virualisation has come.
>
> Probably me and my lack of reading skills, but have you actually told us
> what you are using for the *host* OS?
>
> TIA Smile

The host OS is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and it's the 64-bit version so that I can
access the full 8-gig of RAM. If I end up going this route I'll probably
upgrade my memory to 16-gig so that I can run multiple VM's and have enough
RAM to do it. It'll probably work fine with 8-gig so I'll give that a go
first.

A couple of things that I forgot to mention.

With VMware tools installed in each guest OS it allows me to cut-copy-and
paste between everything. This is one of those small things that is
extremely useful to have. Otherwise there's just too much disconnect
between the host and the guest operating systems.

Another thing that's useful is that VMware lets you 'share' a directory(s)
so it's available to both the host and any number of guests. I have a
network as well which would work but this works really well for
transferring files around.

One thing that always bugged in Linux is 'color correction.' I do a *lot*
of digital photography and I use this gizmo ("Spyder") to calibrate my
monitor for accurate color reproduction. You basically plug it into your
USB port, hang it over your monitor and run their software which puts up
various red, greens, blues, whites and gray-scales. From this it comes up
with the color correction for the monitor.

This works great on Windows but the device doesn't support Linux. So when I
view my photos in Linux the colors always look off. It's either too blue,
too yellow or just plain wrong. What's kind of neat about the VM stuff is
that even though the host is Linux, I can run a Windows VM, and calibrate
the colors there. If the Linux colors are off it doesn't matter because
it'll end up generating the right color correction to make the VM display
the colors properly.

bbgruff · External Since: May 26, 2005 Posts: 60

Ezekiel wrote:

> The host OS is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and it's the 64-bit version so that I can
> access the full 8-gig of RAM. If I end up going this route I'll probably
> upgrade my memory to 16-gig so that I can run multiple VM's and have
> enough RAM to do it. It'll probably work fine with 8-gig so I'll give that
> a go first.

OK - thx Smile

> A couple of things that I forgot to mention.
>
> With VMware tools installed in each guest OS it allows me to cut-copy-and
> paste between everything. This is one of those small things that is
> extremely useful to have. Otherwise there's just too much disconnect
> between the host and the guest operating systems.
>
> Another thing that's useful is that VMware lets you 'share' a directory(s)
> so it's available to both the host and any number of guests. I have a
> network as well which would work but this works really well for
> transferring files around.

OK. I'm playing with VirtualBox in Karmic 9.10, and those two *vital* (imo)
facilities are available there too.

My own requirements are much less ambitious than yours - I simply intend to
use Windows 7 as a VM, just for the times that I need Windows. In
particular, I have an on-line bridge client, some OCR software that I use
from time-to-time, and a need to be able to use IE7 and IE8 to check-out
web sites. If I can get my W7 running (no rush) as a VM, I can scrub the
pre-loaded Vista from this machine.

Don't feel obliged to respond to my ramblings - I got the impression that
you have a "play time" this weekend. Use it! Get on with what you are
doing, and talk later? Smile

When you do have time, I'm intrigued by where you are going in all this, and
why. For the moment though, I'm following your experiments avidly - please
don't break off on my account!

Cheers Smile

Ezekiel · External Since: Jul 03, 2009 Posts: 75

"bbgruff" <bbgruff DeleteThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7lmdq9F3eh8ucU1@mid.individual.net...
> Ezekiel wrote:
>
>> The host OS is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and it's the 64-bit version so that I can
>> access the full 8-gig of RAM. If I end up going this route I'll probably
>> upgrade my memory to 16-gig so that I can run multiple VM's and have
>> enough RAM to do it. It'll probably work fine with 8-gig so I'll give
>> that
>> a go first.
>
> OK - thx Smile

>
>> A couple of things that I forgot to mention.
>>
>> With VMware tools installed in each guest OS it allows me to
>> cut-copy-and
>> paste between everything. This is one of those small things that is
>> extremely useful to have. Otherwise there's just too much disconnect
>> between the host and the guest operating systems.
>>
>> Another thing that's useful is that VMware lets you 'share' a
>> directory(s)
>> so it's available to both the host and any number of guests. I have a
>> network as well which would work but this works really well for
>> transferring files around.
>
> OK. I'm playing with VirtualBox in Karmic 9.10, and those two *vital*
> (imo)
> facilities are available there too.

Excellent. I've never used VBox but I recommended it to a guy at work who
was interested in playing around with virtualization.

> My own requirements are much less ambitious than yours - I simply intend
> to
> use Windows 7 as a VM, just for the times that I need Windows. In
> particular, I have an on-line bridge client, some OCR software that I use
> from time-to-time, and a need to be able to use IE7 and IE8 to check-out
> web sites. If I can get my W7 running (no rush) as a VM, I can scrub the
> pre-loaded Vista from this machine.

I started off slow but the more I play with this stuff the more ideas and
possibilities I see. I have all of my servers (NT domain controller, Ubuntu
and OpenSolaris) virtualized as well as a bunch of play machines. These run
24/7 on a big 19" 4U case with loads of storage, etc. These are running on
ESXi server which is a 'bare metal' hypervisor. There's no "host OS" so to
speak. (techinically there's a tiny Linux that VMware cooked up.)

> Don't feel obliged to respond to my ramblings - I got the impression that
> you have a "play time" this weekend. Use it! Get on with what you are
> doing, and talk later? Smile

The wife and kids won't be home until tomorrow. I did some yard work
earlier (some play time) and now I'm finishing dinner, watching Penn
State - Ohio college football on TV and warming up a bit.

> When you do have time, I'm intrigued by where you are going in all this,
> and
> why. For the moment though, I'm following your experiments avidly -
> please
> don't break off on my account!

I threw out a couple of reasons previously but basically as long as the
performance is there (which it is) there's a lot of advantages to running
things virtualized. For starters it gives me access to multiple OS's
without having to reboot, swap drives or anything like that.

Backing up entire (virtual) computers is trivial. Just copy the
"/home/vmware/ubuntu910" or "/home/vmware/win7" directory and voila' - I
have a complete and perfect backup of the entire machine.

Experimenting - There are times when I want to play around with some app...
Cinelerra, Picassa, OpenOffice, AutoCAD LT, etc. Odds are that this is
just a throw-away trial and I won't be keeping the app around. There's
always a greater-than zero percent chance that the installer will either
screw something up with my machine or that the installer won't fully (as in
100%) remove everything. With virtualization it's trivial... either take a
"snapshot" that I can revert back to when I'm done or create a "clone" that
I can delete when I'm done. Either way there's really no way the software
will cause any damage to my OS.

Safety - Since I have a "snapshot" to revert back to or a "clone" that I
can simply throw away there's nothing that I can do to damage the OS. I
could run all of the 'sudo sh bad-script' or use IE running as Admin to
visit every Russian xxxx-site on the web. My VM can get completely pwned
and when I'm done... toss the "clone" away and I'm back to where I was
earlier.

New Hardware - Since Vista (which I never ran) Windows has been a lot
better with upgrades. Within reason - you can plug a Win7 disk in another
computer and have a decent shot of it working. Linux as always been pretty
good at this but it can also have problems if the drives/controllers
change, video changes etc. So hardware upgrades with real computers can be
a bitch. With virtual machines it's trivial... get whatever hardware you
want, install VMware/VBox, copy your virtual machine files over and it'll
work 99% of the time. The "hardware" the OS runs on is virtual so it never
sees the new disk controller, the new video card or the new NIC.

Flexibility - If I'm going to do some heavy duty processing I can, with a
few mouse clicks, give a VM more memory, another hard drive, another CPU,
etc. It makes it trivial to re-allocate resources when and how I need them.
With VM's you can also create private "virtual" networks for VMs so that
their traffic doesn't interfere with the real network.

Portability - In theory I could put VMware player on a thumbdrive along
with my VM and be able to bring my entire "virtual computer" with me
anywhere I go.

Upgrades - I've been burned by upgrades (both Windows and Linux) where
after the upgrade stuff didn't work right any more. If I'm running in a
VM... not problem. I can test the upgrade in a "clone" first to make sure
it works or roll-back to a snapshot and it's as if the upgrade never even
happened.

So that's sort of the direction I'm going in. The "idea" is to see if it's
feasible to use VM's as my primary OS. The truth is that a VM today is
faster than a native OS ran on my desktop 10 months ago on my old computer.
The biggest thing that I miss are the dual-monitors where I could run
Lightroom on both screens simultaneously. It's only been a few hours but
there's probably a way to force the VMware "window" to extend across both
monitors and I could do it that way.

The stuff I mentioned above are the benefits to running my OS virtualized.
What's the downside??? A slight performance hit is all that I can think of
but with really fast computers, it's not really all that much.

(Sorry if the post rambled on too long.)

bbgruff · External Since: May 26, 2005 Posts: 60

Ezekiel wrote:

> (Sorry if the post rambled on too long.)

Not at all - and thanks for all that typing effort!

Just two things (absolutely no rush - I really am off to bed in 2
minutes!):-

1. I'd never considered making ones "main" OS virtual.
Intriguing - and lateral thinking by you:-)

2. Your "portability" bit.
I see what you are saying re. taking the OS with you, but there is data to
consider, *and* you need to have a (Linux?) host with (in your case) VMware
at the your destination?

G'night Smile

Ezekiel · External Since: Jul 03, 2009 Posts: 75

"bbgruff" <bbgruff DeleteThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7lmh59F3ebm5dU1@mid.individual.net...
> Ezekiel wrote:
>
>> (Sorry if the post rambled on too long.)
>
> Not at all - and thanks for all that typing effort!
>
> Just two things (absolutely no rush - I really am off to bed in 2
> minutes!):-
>
> 1. I'd never considered making ones "main" OS virtual.
> Intriguing - and lateral thinking by you:-)

It's a radical idea but I think that it can be done. At the very least -
it's worth investigating.

> 2. Your "portability" bit.
> I see what you are saying re. taking the OS with you, but there is data
> to
> consider, *and* you need to have a (Linux?) host with (in your case)
> VMware
> at the your destination?

This isn't something that I would probably do so that's why I prefaced my
response with a: "In theory I could put VMware player on a thumbdrive..."

I portable USB drive is probably more realistic than a thumb-drive but I
could put a bootable Linux OS, VMware player and my VM files on a portable
drive. This would let me take my "desktop OS" anywhere with me and run it
from a laptop, etc.

One interesting thing (interesting to me) is that even with a 32-bit host
OS, you can still run a 64-bit guest OS. I understand why that is but it's
still something I consider neat.

> G'night Smile

Later... I'm off to do some work. (Actual "work-work" on the computer that
is.)

John Fuhrer · External Since: Nov 03, 2009 Posts: 76

On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:48:24 +0000, bbgruff wrote:

> Ezekiel wrote:
>
>> I have a spare (250G) SATA disk and I'm going to install a 64-bit Linux
>> on it.
>
> I'm following all this avidly, and thanks for troubling to post. It all
> really is a gob-smacking illustration of how far virualisation has come.
>
> Probably me and my lack of reading skills, but have you actually told us
> what you are using for the *host* OS?
>
> TIA Smile

I agree!!!

It's truly amazing that we have reached the point where running in a VM is
almost, or actually *is* as good performance wise as running native.

The future is wide open for this type of technology!

philo · External Since: May 01, 2009 Posts: 25

Ezekiel wrote:
> "philo" <philo.TakeThisOut@privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:a_ednd2gybmL2WjXnZ2dnUVZ_j9i4p2d@ntd.net...
>> Ezekiel wrote:
>
> (snip for space)
>
>>> My system hardware should be able to handle it - the question is how
>>> well. The wife and kids will be gone part of the weekend so I'll have
>>> some alone time to mess around and try it out. I'm curious how well it'll
>>> work. I've mostly been running Win7 on the machine but all the HDDs are
>>> in removable bays:
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054
>>>
>>> so swapping things around is trivial to do. I'm happy with my hardware
>>> but the only thing I'd consider switching is to get a 10k RPM drive
>>> instead of the 7200 RPM. It's just something to think about if I go the
>>> virtualization route.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Well...
>> most of my machines have removable drives
>> and between all my machines I have about 25 different installations
>> of various operating systems
>
> I find that I don't swap the drives very often. For "big" projects it's
> great but for most things it's more convenient to just fire up a VM.
> Otherwise there's always something on a 'different' drive that I can't
> access without the shutdown/swap-drives/reboot cycle. With VM's I can just
> power it up as if I were running an app.
>
>
>> Never fooled around much with virtual machines
>
> It's actually pretty cool stuff. The technology is getting really good. I've
> always found it neat watching an entire OS boot inside of a window.
>
>
>
>
>

Yes...I do have a few virtual installs and some have worked out quite well.

I know what you mean about always having stuff on a drive I'm not booted
to...so I got smart and keep a copy of most of my stuff on an external
drive...
but I do have a lot of stuff scattered all over the place in a totally
chaotic manner!

Ezekiel · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 44

"philo" <philo.RemoveThis@privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:hd5ntn$g2m$4@news.eternal-september.org...
> Ezekiel wrote:
>> "philo" <philo.RemoveThis@privacy.net> wrote in message
>> news:a_ednd2gybmL2WjXnZ2dnUVZ_j9i4p2d@ntd.net...
>>> Ezekiel wrote:
>>
>> (snip for space)
>>
>>>> My system hardware should be able to handle it - the question is how
>>>> well. The wife and kids will be gone part of the weekend so I'll have
>>>> some alone time to mess around and try it out. I'm curious how well
>>>> it'll work. I've mostly been running Win7 on the machine but all the
>>>> HDDs are in removable bays:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054
>>>>
>>>> so swapping things around is trivial to do. I'm happy with my hardware
>>>> but the only thing I'd consider switching is to get a 10k RPM drive
>>>> instead of the 7200 RPM. It's just something to think about if I go the
>>>> virtualization route.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well...
>>> most of my machines have removable drives
>>> and between all my machines I have about 25 different installations
>>> of various operating systems
>>
>> I find that I don't swap the drives very often. For "big" projects it's
>> great but for most things it's more convenient to just fire up a VM.
>> Otherwise there's always something on a 'different' drive that I can't
>> access without the shutdown/swap-drives/reboot cycle. With VM's I can
>> just power it up as if I were running an app.
>>
>>
>>> Never fooled around much with virtual machines
>>
>> It's actually pretty cool stuff. The technology is getting really good.
>> I've always found it neat watching an entire OS boot inside of a window.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Yes...I do have a few virtual installs and some have worked out quite
> well.
>
> I know what you mean about always having stuff on a drive I'm not booted
> to...so I got smart and keep a copy of most of my stuff on an external
> drive...

I use my network server as the 'external drive' but I still have multiple
copies of "stuff" that needs some cleaning up and organizing. The thing is
that I'll have some little app/utility that I wrote or a script or
something. I copy it to computer-X, modify it, bring it to work, change it
there, bring it back home on a thumb-drive, copy it to another computer. Now
I have multiple-copies of something but I don't delete it because I want to
make sure that I'm not deleting the wrong one.

> but I do have a lot of stuff scattered all over the place in a totally
> chaotic manner!

What I need is some utility that can scan all my drives, all my network
drives, removable drives, etc and show me what duplicates I have. Lately
I've been a lot better and more organized probably because I've gotten
better at managing this sort of stuff. But I have loads of older stuff from
before that I need to go through one day (one weekend) and organize once and
for all.