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On the subject of power savings, I tried enabling the on-demand frequency governor when I last upgraded my system. Turned out that enabling AMD's PowerNow feature in the BIOS, which enabled the on-demand governor to work, caused my VMware virtual machine to randomly hang and/or stop its clock. So I had to turn it off.

I'm willing to try some of the other power-saving suggestions, but only as long as they don't cause problems in any of the applications I use.

Sun wants to sell lots of x86 boxes. To do so, it would behoove them to be a Windows OEM. Simple. And if Microsoft refuses, then they are being anticompetitive - this would seem like a poor choice of a place to be anticompetitive for Microsoft - there are much better ways - haha. Since both Microsoft and Sun have their own virtualization technologies, it would make sense for them to look at virtualization interoperability with each other as a way to maybe grab a slice of the virtualization money pie from VMWare. Microsoft to be sure is at a point where it needs to hedge its bets with Virtualization. If VMWare succeeds in getting broad adoption by the major server vendors of the newly announced ESX Server 3i embedded hypervisor, then VMWare has virtually (pun intended) locked in a crucial component of the next big thing in the data center.

http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/open_source.html So how is the GPL being violated? Seems like they have older versions of their product on there too. Anyone want to clarify this? I read some comments that VMware seems to be in compliance. This was a fairly easy link to find. It was not buried anywhere obscure either.

http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/open_source.html So what is the problem? I bet the reason the forums have not gotten an answer is because the user never bothered to look for the answer. He wanted it answered for him instead of actually you know doing some of the legwork himself. That or just posting FUD. The code is there for all to see.

JUst as a response to this comment. I work at VMware. This is not an official represntation of the companies stance. It is my personal opinion and mine alone. Firstly to the poster I am replying to, If you interview here and are asked about your linux skills you are required to have them (I too did the Robert Half thing and they do ask for that when you talk to the rep). And you will be quizzed on it. Bottom line is for desktops and and servers we basically have users who want to use linux so we set it up for them. They have that option here. So therefore everyone from the helpdesk up must know how to use and troubleshoot linux. As far as BO issues you would not be the first. You can bash us not getting in but that is the head hunters fault for wasting your time and our time in interviewing someone who did not have qualifications WE specified to them. Now back to the show. Honestly I am pretty sure VMware has got this covered legally (again not any kind of official response). This whole article smells of FUD from someone who neglected aspects of the situation at hand. If anyone in this article had bothered to go to the source, mainly our vmware.com website you would see this http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/open_source.html The source code for the products in question are posted right on our website so I do not see how VMware is violating the GPL. There are certainly proprietary portions of the product. Internally I will say there is a deep respect for the FOSS community and we are working to make efforts to work better with the community. It is by no means perfect, but at least we try. The OP never did any real looking. This would probably explain why the OP never got an answer to his posts. If there is something further beyond that is being violated then I am not exactly clear on what it is. The code is being posted in what seems to me in accordance to the GPL. As for the other products they are built very differently and as far as I am aware do not contain any GPL code in them. If they do they get posted on the website in the same manner as the link I posted. Just in case that link was missed

Hmmm... boy it didn't take me 3 seconds on a search engine to find this or anything (stupid posts from people who couldn't take a single second to think annoy me)

http://www.vmware.com/download/open_source.html

Heck the ESX EULA, gives you a nice hyperlink to the downloads even

http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/esx_server.htm l

Hmmm... boy it didn't take me 3 seconds on a search engine to find this or anything (stupid posts from people who couldn't take a single second to think annoy me)

http://www.vmware.com/download/open_source.html

Heck the ESX EULA, gives you a nice hyperlink to the downloads even

http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/esx_server.htm l

and of course VMware DOES redistribute modified source.

see here

Hell, I'm ready to make the switch to Ubuntu, but for my slavery to Quicken.

I'd just read a story on how Steve Ballmer said that "the company is tackling disruptive technology changes head-on" and both Steve and Bill were uncharacteristically telling analysts that everything was smelling like roses at Microsoft. Now, seeing this story of what's really MS "Get The Facts, Part Deux" and I'm thinking that the "disruptive technology" Balmer spoke of was probably not Google but more likely was Linux, OSS, and AJAX technologies.

IMO, it appears that Linux and OSS is making enough of a dent into Microsofts expansion plans that they feel they need to put up a site where existing Microsoft customers can "learn" about OSS from Microsoft instead of going off to some Linux distro and learning about it from a direction which will likely lead away from Microsoft software. Good move on Microsofts part but how effective it'll be is questionable. With pre-configured and free virtual machine images available for all kinds of experimentation( http://vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.htm l ) it's a tough battle keeping Windows developers tied only to Windows for next-gen products. So it'll keep some hardcore Microsoft customers but the newer customers can and will easily find Linux and OSS enticing once they learn the ropes. IMO.

BTW, Microsoft normally tries to play down growth and future revenue to the financial analysts so to more easily meet and/or beat expectations. The "everything is smelling like roses" stories are usually reserved for the CEO, CTO, and other PHB style of gatherings. So this seems like the first telling of the story of what's really keeping these guys up at night. And Google is definitely part of that story too.

LoB

Presumably with some sort of shared storage?
I'd be interested to know whats used. Is it a generic shared/cluster storage system or some special VMWare-provided system?

Go to the source & have a look: http://vmware.com/products/vi/vc/vmotion.html They also have free trials.

Vmotion will work with just about any SAN, but it can work with NAS (network shares) as well.

Install Windows on the hardware, run VMware Server on Windows, run your Linux instances as VMs and access them remotely with a thin client, remote X, VNC, etc. VMware Server is free (beer free,) and perfect for what you need.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

VMWare had some limited support for this: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_vidsound_ d3d.html The last time I tried it, it was probably not up to the standards of Wine/Cedega, but it had potential for running games that require Windows' quirks. It was only Directx 8 though (or DirectX 9 that only actually uses DirectX 8 features).

Try running the games inside a virtual machine. The free version rocks, and you can install windows 95 or windows 98 on it.

The games you mentioned are old enough that even with the slowdown from using a virtual machine you'll still end up with better performance than the last time you played them on real hardware.

I haven't tested it, but I was looking into something similar. Open Source at least.

http://www.orangehrm.com/home/

VMWare Appliance for quick testing: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/72 1

May I make a suggestion? Use the free VMWare player and the distro image of your choice to begin the migration to Linux.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/ca t/45

May I make a suggestion? Use the free VMWare player and the distro image of your choice to begin the migration to Linux.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/ca t/45

VMware does most of their contracting through their VMware Authorized Consultant Partner (VAC) program. These are companies that employ certified consultants and do both their own work and work subcontracted by VMware. You may have better luck finding a local VAC and working with them to schedule a consultant's time. VAC Locator

VMware does most of their contracting through their VMware Authorized Consultant Partner (VAC) program. These are companies that employ certified consultants and do both their own work and work subcontracted by VMware. You may have better luck finding a local VAC and working with them to schedule a consultant's time. VAC Locator

Can you please expand upon that statement? I've been waiting for AIX LPARs to support not only live migration like VMWare's Vmotion, but also the ability to run two or more copies of an LPAR simultaneously (so high availability design can be taken to the next level, and physical server outages automatically trigger a slaved LPAR to take over the partition), which I have yet to see claimed by any virtualization solution. So far as I can see, IBM's Advanced POWER Virtualization only has a Statement of Direction (SoD) for what they call Live Partition Mobility, claiming it will be delivered by the end of 2007. Thus, in this respect at least, VMWare ESX is still ahead of AIX LPAR capabilities.

vmware server is now free.
http://vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.htm l

"Logging into servers at my company and often seeing 5% CPU usage doesn't exactly fill me with pride either"

Ever heard of server virtualization ? http://www.vmware.com/ or http://www.xensource.com/

I've cut our datacenter footprint by over 35% using virtual servers.

I recently got a Macbook, and have been using VMWare Fusion, which is currently a free beta. It's worked well with my Fedora 5,6 and CentOS 4,5 VMs, haven't tried Gentoo yet. Pretty polished for a beta, no complaints so far...

I'd prefer to be able to dual-boot directly into Windows or Linux (for when I want the fastest performance in Linux, and give it 100% of the RAM), and also be able to run that Linux installation inside of Windows. However, this requires the VM to support booting off a separate partition, and apparently VirtualBox doesn't support that. (yes, booting the same Linux setup under two very different sets of "hardware" has its challenges, but it is possible)

Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?

Yes, imho.

And it's interesting that the press release http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/fusion ap.html is officially touting DirectX 8.1 which has been experimental forever.

A seamless "Unity for Ubuntu" and DirectX 9.0c would be the final pieces of the puzzle for a lot of folks. It doesn't help the cause for pushing development of native Linux apps. But it would certainly increase the installed base of non-Windows OSes and that's a solid baby step.

I can't believe no-one's yet pointed out that exactly what you've just described already exists...! It's a Virtual PC image, but that's easy enough to convert to VMWare. Yes, it's free.

Almost.

It's a Mac running VMWare Fusion http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/features.html.

This is WWDC. It is a developer conference, not a consumer conference. Its focus has always been software (although WWDC has occasionally been the forum for hardware announcements). Apple is doing more and more product introductions as they're ready (e.g., like last week's new MacBook Pro introduction), and less and less product introductions at conferences and "special events".

Everyone expecting brushed aluminum iMacs and new Cinema Displays shouldn't have expected that in the first place. And an Apple-branded virtualization solution? It's been known since last WWDC that Leopard wouldn't have integrated virtualization. With three different solutions already existing, plus Boot Camp, why would you even expect that, no matter how nice it would be?

And who would care about this announcement? This isn't just "Safari for Windows". Jeez. It's the channel for development for iPhone, since all of iPhone's third-party development will be as Safari web apps.

I'm quite curious what virtualization platform you are using, where enabling VT/SVM in BIOS makes such a difference. It's certainly not VMware, because current hardware virtualization runs slower than the state-of-the-art in software. AMD and Intel have new chips with second-generation hardware virtualization (which DO make that much of a difference), but you can't buy those yet. I do suggest reading the paper linked above - it's a great description of where all the virtualization overheads actually are.

Many comments to this article miss the point. Think VM as in VMware not VM as in java. The Lina VM emulates an x86 processor, the VM runs X and displays bit maps in its application window. The emulation of look and feel comes out basically perfect because the VM deals with hardware, not OS calls. Large disk drives make this possible by enabling Lina to provide an extra copy of the operating system, libraries, X, etc for each application. Maybe surprising, but this doesn't have too much overhead. If you want to try out this technology right now, down load vmplayer (http://vmware.com/) and install one of the appliances.

Jackass, why have a link to your fucking blog and that fucking blog entry referenced is nothing more then one single sentence that contains a link to the real article.

I'll save everyone the trouble, go directly to this link to bypass the stupid and useless blog stop over.

You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware to request such review.

Yeah but Xen is still a royal PITA to get running. KVM wasn't bad, and VMWare was pretty easy. I haven't even seen OpenVZ.

Yes, Xen is harder to install. But to compare it with KVM ... did you try to use them? KVM (at least, last time I tried -- which was only a couple weeks ago) is still in development, and the performance is so low compared to Xen that it's not even funny.

On the other hand, VMware is very nice, specially the free Server edition, and it's really easy to use. But even so, performance is better in Xen. Check this. Paravirtualization needs modified guests, but the outcome is so good that VMware is trying paravirtualization too.

VMWare is so far ahead it will take some time for Xen to be considered out of the hobbyist market and in the commercial one

What do you think is needed for Xen to be considered apt for commercial use? Remember that Xen can use unmodified guests if the hardware supports VTX/SVM instructions, which means that it can run Windows. Pretty front-ends? Xensource (which is slashdotted now, I guess, because it times out from here) offers one, and you also have Enomalism.

Besides, by what Wikipedia says about OpenVZ, it seems to be more a solution like jails, because it uses the same kernel for both the host and the guest systems. The phrase "glorified chroot" comes to mind, though I'm aware that it's more than that (just adding it for the sake of trolling, I guess :-)). Xen, VMware and QEMU/KVM are, on the other hand, real virtualization solutions, where all the virtual system runs completely isolated.

Good points. Also note that this comparision with highly optimized commercial xensource product ($750 perpetual per dual socket; $488 annual subscription per dual socket)

The free xen performs worse than vmware! http://www.vmware.com/pdf/hypervisor_performance.p df

First with VMware virtual machines encapsulated in a single VMDK file on my mobile 8 GB microdrive. You can run them anywhere with the free VMware Player (Windows or Linux).

As of last week, with the new Pocket ACE it gets even easier and I can add encryption, expiration time, etc. Awesome technology if you haven't tried it. http://www.vmware.com/products/ace/features.html

IMHO, unless you are a gamer or you need very specific hardware, there is no reason any more to run anything outside a VM.

VMware already has this. It's called VMware ACE

http://www.vmware.com/products/ace/

Try using different DNS servers.

4.2.2.3
4.2.2.5

--Also there is a free Squid proxy cache available from Vmware, and Player is free:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messag eID=351219
( You prolly want the V2 version tho: )
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?thread ID=32782&start=15&tstart=0

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Try using different DNS servers.

4.2.2.3
4.2.2.5

--Also there is a free Squid proxy cache available from Vmware, and Player is free:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messag eID=351219
( You prolly want the V2 version tho: )
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?thread ID=32782&start=15&tstart=0

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Try using different DNS servers.

4.2.2.3
4.2.2.5

--Also there is a free Squid proxy cache available from Vmware, and Player is free:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messag eID=351219
( You prolly want the V2 version tho: )
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?thread ID=32782&start=15&tstart=0

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

if you dont want to install linux, then try the programs via a VmWare image.

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/85 6

They provide a pre-built virtual machine to try out a full installation with no setup.

I've played with it and it's basically "email server in a box"...just turn it on and point your mail app at it. I can't speak for specific features because it's been awhile now since I last checked it out.

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, but couldn't you just save yourself the aggro by using VMWare's Mac OS player?

They have several such products. There's a good one called VMWare.

Distributing game client software as a virtual machine image scoots around the whole operating system issue entirely, does it not?

If a company was so inclined, they could design their product to install on windows or on their own tweaked Wine, then distribute the windows installer for the current large windows base together with a VMWare image containing a barebones linux syste, with the tweaked wine and the game installed.

That would probably allow them to provide a higher-performance alternative for those who are using other operating systems, while still giving their application optimum Windows performance.

--Look into Vmware. Seriously. If you have a modern computer with enough RAM (512MB+) you can run Server (free) to create/run VMs (Linux under Windows); or use Player (256MB-384MB+) to run existing VMs/appliances, etc. And their support forums are excellent.

--I'm a big vmware Workstation user (Linux hosts FTW) but that one's not free.

http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization .html
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index-r.html Appliance VMs (dozens)
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa (Forums)
http://easyvmx.com/ ( Create VMs for Player )

--The only downside is that (currently) Player and Server can't be concurrently installed on the same OS partition; but I get around this by triple-booting XP (Player), 64-bit Ubuntu (Workstation+Player) and 32-bit Ubuntu (Server.)

--Look into Vmware. Seriously. If you have a modern computer with enough RAM (512MB+) you can run Server (free) to create/run VMs (Linux under Windows); or use Player (256MB-384MB+) to run existing VMs/appliances, etc. And their support forums are excellent.

--I'm a big vmware Workstation user (Linux hosts FTW) but that one's not free.

http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization .html
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index-r.html Appliance VMs (dozens)
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa (Forums)
http://easyvmx.com/ ( Create VMs for Player )

--The only downside is that (currently) Player and Server can't be concurrently installed on the same OS partition; but I get around this by triple-booting XP (Player), 64-bit Ubuntu (Workstation+Player) and 32-bit Ubuntu (Server.)

--Look into Vmware. Seriously. If you have a modern computer with enough RAM (512MB+) you can run Server (free) to create/run VMs (Linux under Windows); or use Player (256MB-384MB+) to run existing VMs/appliances, etc. And their support forums are excellent.

--I'm a big vmware Workstation user (Linux hosts FTW) but that one's not free.

http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization .html
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index-r.html Appliance VMs (dozens)
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa (Forums)
http://easyvmx.com/ ( Create VMs for Player )

--The only downside is that (currently) Player and Server can't be concurrently installed on the same OS partition; but I get around this by triple-booting XP (Player), 64-bit Ubuntu (Workstation+Player) and 32-bit Ubuntu (Server.)

unless it is graphically intensive (dx9, requiring 3d acceleration) everything can either be emulated (wine) or virtualized (xen or vmware). unfortunatally there is no such thing as a free lunch - there is the additional cost of maintaining the extra layer, and ever for highly optimized applications there is still a performance hit (5% or so)

Why bother hacking the BIOS? Install vmplayer and the prebuilt browser appliance