User-Mode Linux Merged Into 2.5 Kernel

An anonymous reader writes "With little fanfare, User Mode-Linux (UML) has been merged into Linus' BitKeeper tree. The merge followed a patch by UML author Jeff Dike, resynching UML with the 2.5.34 development kernel. From the UML homepage, User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers 'a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.'" There's more UML resources available at the community site.

Comments

Good stuff.

[Lukey Boy]

I recently found a beautiful use for user mode linux - changing distributions with a minimum of downtime.

I have a RedHat box that's colocated that I wanted to move over to Debian - so I installed UML and loaded Debian onto one partition, got everything set up correctly and told LILO to boot off the new slice. After a few minutes of praying Debian came up running all the correct services.

Thanks to the UML team!

Another important use

[fireboy1919]

There are several products that require a custom kernel, and this could certainly benefit all of them.

The one I'm thinking of right now is Win4lin, the cheapest, fastest Windows VM for Linux right now; it needs a kernel with its own patches, and they distribute patches for Debian, Slackware, Mandrake, and Vanilla kernels. My distro (Gentoo) makes a kernel which is known for its speed, but which I'm not using right now because of this (I can't even patch the Vanilla kernel to that level because it the Win4lin patch conflicts with Gentoo's patches).