I tried three different virtualization tools today: Xen, VMware, and VirtualBox. All of them had problems, and I had no success in setting up a virtual machine.
Xen requires a new Linux kernel, which the configuration package found and installed. I had to restart Linux and specify the "Xen" kernel. All of that was not too bad. I was unable to create a virtual machine, though. The virtual machine manager lets me get only so far, and then issues the message "unsupported protocol".
VMware doesn't require a new kernel, but has problems installing under YAST. It claims to install, but doesn't place the required files on your computer! I had to un-install the package and then re-install it from the command line. This works, and the VMware Player runs, sort of. It gets so far and then demands gcc 4.3.2 to compiler certain modules. SuSE Linux 11.1 doesn't have gcc 4.3.2, it has gcc 4.3.3. But VMware is smart enough to care about the difference, and won't let you run a virtual machine. SuSE Linux 11.1 doesn't have an easy way to install gcc 4.3.2 (you can install gcc 3.4 or gcc 4.3.3 but not anything else through YAST) and I suppose that I could find the compiler, but what else will I need?
Sun's VirtualBox has different problems. It runs as root but won't run from a user account. In user mode, one starts the program, waits a bit... and nothing happens. No error message! (There may be one buried in a log file somewhere.)
So it was three strikeouts with virtualization today.
A really interesting green computer technology I found is desktop virtualization. It's where multiple people can use the same computer at the same time each with their own monitor, mouse and keyboard. This saves a lot of electricity and e-waste. A company called Userful recently set a virtualization world record by delivering over 350,000 virtual desktops to schools in Brazil. They have a free 2-user version for home use too. Check it out: http://www.userful.com
ReplyDelete