Recently I stumbled upon a vendor (www.vmware.com) whose product
supposedly virtualizes x86 hardware. They claim to support multiple
concurrently executing instances of Linux, various flavors of Windows,
Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, etc, all within a single x86 machine.
Is this possible? Many of these operating systems implement multiple
virtual memory address spaces. This implies virtual virtual memory?
IBM mainframe architectures rely heavily on microcode traps to
mitigate/replace redundant guest OS function... traps missing in x86.
The TLB issues alone must be a nightmare.
Then I ponder device virtualization...virtual NIC's...virtual SCSI
adapters...virtual interrupt/call gates...BOGGLE!!!
Too good to be true, snake oil me thinks. Yet, VA Research and Red Hat
CEOs are offering testimonials. Aeyeee...whiplash.
Does anyone on the list have experience with this stuff? I need a
reality check.
Regards,
Reed H. Petty
rhp@draper.net
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/