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Review Of Serenity Virtual Station
JigSaw writes "Here's some serious competition for VMWare and Virtual PC: OSNews reviews a new OS emulator, the Serenity Virtual Station, which can run as a host on FreeBSD, Linux and OS/2 and supports as guests a slew of OSes. It is based on the twoOStwo virtual operating engine (which additonally runs on top of Windows as well)."
"Serenity Virtual Station has support for the broadest set of operating systems in the industry. Supported host including Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and IBM OS/2 - eComStation. Guest operating sytems support includes Linux, Windows, and IBM OS/2 - eComStation."
From their website (front page)
I take it you're new around here?
I don't mean to offend but I'm not going to consider it serious competition until it's managed a few months/years of actual use, as opposed to being merely a beta product that isn't even out for the public yet.
It's pretty surprizing since doesn't VMware hold several patents on running virtual guest operating systems like Uniden holds a crap load of patents on how to listen on different frequencies? I know bad example, but I couldn't think of anything else at the moment. ;)
This space is not for rent.
There was a discussion here recently about why so many haven't given Windows up. There were various reasons presented but the main one seemed to be Adobe Photoshop - I don't know what other OS emulators had been available, but if Serenity Virtual Station does what it says it does, now I can delete my Windows partition completely!
or win4linux? I believe that vmware is quite hard to win, because the performance are already very good... but thinking of it, I really don't see why I need to run windows on my linux box since I can use winex for games, and for all the rest I can find a better app that runs on linux.
Is it fast?
VMWare pricing is a little steep. It is a fantastic product. I don't, however, use all of its features. One that provided the basic functionality, which is a fast, easy-to-use virtual machine at a fraction of the cost would be useful.
Also, I would want to be sure that the licensing is per-user, and you can install it on any number of host computers you like, provided only you use it. I would not want to have to pay for a separate copy to use under Windows or Linux, because sometimes I will be on my Windows box emulating Linux, and sometimes on my Linux box emulating windows. I myself might use them concurrently, but I will be the user.
Just two thoughts before giving this serious consideration as an alternative to VMWare.
Can't we strip down the "OS" to just this kind of layer that centralizes access to the unique local hardware and process space? Then the "hosted" OS'es can just be commonly installed apps and libraries. We can carve them up to reduce redundancy. Signed APIs for IPC ACLs would complete this picture. It would remove many of the limits to scaling a processor off a single machine, to any available network resources. And the open source OS'es would be more fit to reproduce in this environment.
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"
- WB Yeats, "Things Fall Apart"
--
make install -not war
Ah, well. Trust OS News to be short on technical details. Or even on proper grammar.
Does anyone know about a free alternative to VMWare etc.? It sure would be nice to be able to run "the other OS" in a virtual machine while I'm on Linux or Windows... but not nice enought to warrant paying for it.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Imagine the possibilities. You can boot Windows XP, start this Serenity thing, boot a Linux image into it, run Bochs, and boot Windows 95 into that. And then you'll be set, my friend, because you know what they say: once the Linux community gets this circular OS booting thing going on, Linux will make definite inroads. Watch out, Redmond.
First off, it's a reply to the question "Does it run linux?" (Re: But) Second, you can tell by, oh, I don't know, clicking on my username to know how long I've been posting, which isn't accurate anyway because I've been reading /. for years but never bothered to give my opinion on things to people that don't matter.
And, on the off chance that the person asking the question was being sarcastic, the sarcasm must have been lost in his 4 word post.
Yes. And it shall be called MVS.
Actually, if you want to run virtual machines, the way to go might be the AMD 64-bit machines, which supposedly have the proper hardware support virtual IA-32 machines. Has anybody tried that yet?
And I for one wouldn't mind not having some elitist-dork pounce one everyone who has a typo or slight spelling mistake.
Double negative. Booyeah.
VMWare just chopped $100 off the price of VMWare Workstation. You can now buy version 4.5 for $199 (boxed) or $189 (download).
At the lower price, Im considering buying it myself. (I would buy only one copy for only one host OS.) Maybe theyre feeling the heat from all that open source competition.
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
It's called a "running joke." Slashdot has quite a few of them. Some of the most popular are the "IN SOVIET RUSSIA..." and "But does it run Linux?" Even if the article was about a Linux Powered Linux Machine Used By Linux, someone would probably ask "But does it run Linux?" So, in conclusion, I think you lack a sense of humor.
The double negative makes his point, moron. He would not mind not having something he doesn't like. If you remove one of those negatives, for example, he would mind not having something he doesn't like, it shows you the opposite of what he wants.
insanity later
Since buying my 15" PowerBook G4, I've been able to replicate most of the main functions I had on previous Linux or Windows boxes.
About the only think I haven't got is a good PPC vertual machine application. Yes, there is VirtualPC, but that emulates a completely different architecture (x86), so there will be a big performance hit. What I am looking for is the equivalent of VMWare for PowerPC. I could then have a farily light weight LinuxPPC image for all my Linux needs, rather than needing to repartition my drive and create a dual boot Linux/MacOS X system.
Does such a thing exist?
...spectacularly better performance or a lower price compared to VMware, it's of no value to me. Actually, I'm quite sorry to see the direction plex86 has gone in becuse they could have offered a nice alternative to VMware. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any company who has hit on the idea of an OS specifically GEARED towards virtualization. I think they'd steal the show. VMware on Linux is about the closest you can get to that right now. But the perfect solution would be a thin OS with no GUI that just allows you to install and run multiple OSes simultaneously.
Un-news
Minor but significant difference.
Redundant?
He was tring to be funny, I guess..
... road fork you" I will admit to my hoeing and hang my head in shame.
I hardly ever use virtual machine software, but I've got an idea.
I've heard my college doesn't allow people to use Linux laptops on campus. they say it's a security risk (yet they plan to force everyone to use Windows XP laptops in the upcoming Laptop Initiative).
I'm just going to run a virtual machine with Windows XP in fullscreen when faculty are around.
People stay on Windows because:
.NET or Cocoa), and so forth. Personally, I'm looking forward to the 1.0 release of Y-Windows.
- It's easy to use (before someone chimes in with their anecdotal "this happened to me once" situation, yes, for the majority of people Windows is very easy to use)
- Easy to download and install drivers.
- As a result, easy to go down to Wal-mart and buy a new printer and have it work in less than a minute.
- Endless software, including lots of freeware. There's more software for Windows because Windows is easier to develop for, with no endless list of competing, inconsistent toolkits that exist simply to reinvent the wheel yet again and introduce another "choice"
- Old software still works. I can run my Windows 3.1 programs in XP if I wanted to. Linux distros are still a bit of a moving target. I can't guarantee an RPM I got five years ago will still work, can I? Meanwhile, I can run a Windows app from 10 years ago with no problems.
If you honestly think the reason that 95% of the marketshare is using Windows is simply because of Photoshop, you're deluded. OS X has Photoshop as well, but look at its share compared to Windows.
Note that despite all this, Linux can catch up and defeat Windows. But it has to abandon XFree86, implement things like binary installation/uninstallation APIs, one sane toolkit that is a joy to program for (i.e., like
I believe that would be OS/390^W z/OS this week.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
the i386 aarchitecture is an inheriently non-virtulaizable architecture. The reason for this is the presence of 17 non privileged sensitive instructions. VMware has to modify binary code before executing i386 binaries natively in a VM. Even in that case, we arent really sure what it is they do since it is closed source.
I would be very very careful with VMs for i386 unless of course i knew exaclty how it was handling those 17 instructions. Just becasue it can run programs does not mean that it is a proper VM or even that it is a secure VM.
There is a chance you can mess up your machine with theset things.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Apart from the obvious reference to the village I live in (Svista), is this some Firefly reference going on right under our noses?
Is there any sort of emulator that can allow people with x86 architecture boxes to run OSX? I'm not sure about the details involved in creating something like that or if it is even possible so edify me.
It was a joke. Get over it.
One irritating thing about VMWare Workstation is that it's only officially supported with a few very specific kernel versions with standard configurations. In my experience, sometimes it's a problem, sometimes it's not. Serenity reportedly supports all 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels.
On another note, VMware released several versions of their software before they finally included such important features as USB support. Even though it's still unclear whether such features will make it into the first official release of Serenity, one wonders how soon an open source project of this magnitude will be able to match VMware Workstation 4.x's performance and core feature set--especially considering that Serenity's supported OS's already rival VMware's.
If Serenity is more responsive in windowed mode than VMware Workstation, then that's already a big plus.
MEEPT!
If you are slightly adventurous, and don't need ImageReady you can also try running Photoshop in regular Wine.
I have installed VMware on a number of Linux distros without any issues. It has been a simple matter of untarring the tar.gz archive and running the install script. You will need gcc and the headers for your current kernel. Most distros have a kernel headers or kernel source package. VMware 4.5 now supports 2.6 kernels. Previous version of VMware required 3rd party patches. If you use one of the supported RedHat, SuSE, or Mandrake distros you probably can install the rpm with even less effort.
... I believe this is the closest you can get, not an emulator but a branch off the original OSX project. They have OS that runs on either PPc machines and on x86. There was some schisming a ways back, and I think there's an "offical" apple branch as well, and I do not know which is better or "more pure" or "low on carbs" or whatever the beef is.. or whatever, I just know they exist. this one has the nifty GNU in the front of it.
Gnu-Darwin
STEVEs want an open road, the Mustang GT390 of hardware and the Jacqueline Bisset of algorithms... and, er, hardware.
STOUs want to "send a picture" and "read mail".
A STOU doesn't really buy much software. A STOU doesn't even buy the OS: it comes with the "mail reader" or "picture scanner", or they get it for free from someone. A STOU doesn't care about the implications of anything he needs to do his task. (SUVs are for STOUs.)
In the 90s, MonopoSoft was happy to let piracy go on because it captured STOUshare for them. MonospoSoft understands the economic importance of STOUshare. The first version of M-Windows for which MonopoSoft has seriously tried to control piracy is XP.
It's just much easier for everyone in the retail food-chain to steer and market to STOUs. Why have a variety of foods when this bag of chips -- the brand your neighbours are eating! -- will do just fine. Oh, by the way, you can't eat anything else.
Linux, the STEVE OS, has done most of the catching up that it can with STEVEs. In nations with low per-capita income and a mistrust of the US and MonopoSoft, Linux will probably gain STOUshare.Until STOUs can talk about Linux without having to know what they are talking about, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until STOUs can call a Help Desk and talk to more STOUs about problems neither of them understands, Linux will not gain STOUshare.
Until Linux can do MORE than M-Windows can while supporting all that M-Windows supports and working flawlessly with everything that MonopoSoft controls, Linux can't direct where the market goes and cannot gain STOUshare in North America.
The outlook is bleak. But there is a trump card: any OS that makes Jacqueline Bisset want you is so STEVE that even all the STOUs will fight for it.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
AI isn't usually in the business of killing people, unless you can bore dictators to death with letters.... Puzzled.
no taxation without representation!
actually MVS, OS/390, and zOS are different. zOS is a 64 bit OS and MVS and OS/390 are 31 bit.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Speaking as a slightly advanced home user, ESX server wouldn't be of much use since it's pretty expensive and requires very expensive hardware. If we're being completely honest here, most of us do more with omputers at home than work. I run VMWare Workstation so that I can boot Win9x for the occasional app or game that doesn't run in W.I.N.E. People like me need addressing and ESX won't do it. I was kind of excited about Plex86. I've also used Dosbox to some extent (for emulation, not virtualization). But VMWare does something that we really need an inexpensive alternative for... And what better way to provide it than with a system that has a thin OS for running multiple OSes. This is becoming more the norm than the exception.
Un-news
In my old days, I once had an Apple IIci running AUX. Inside that system, I ran the Macintosh app Virtual PC. (At least I think that was it's name, but that was a long time ago . . . a long long time ago ... 1993) Inside of Virtual PC, I installed DOS 6.22. Then, low and behold, I boot up Windows 3.11. At the time, it was the most convoluted way to run Windows, but it worked. Slowly. Very very slowly. But it worked.
...tizzyd
YHBT.
YHL.
HAND.
Just curious why.
This, ladies and gentleman, is an example of what happens when ignorance is given a voice.
You can't run Windows apps from 10 years ago b/c XP will complain that they aren't 32 bit apps; they are 16 bit.
100% wrong. Windows XP won't "complain;" it will run them just fine. Your post, however, doesn't even make sense.
Windows 3.1 apps were 16-bit but ran just fine in Windows 95. Win32 was built with a compatibility layer. Consequently, XP runs Windows 95 apps just fine, as NT4 used the Win32 library developed in 95.
You can even run the MS-DOS Executive from Windows 1.0 under Windows XP.
Not to mention the fact that Windows XP has a Compabitility tab in application properties that lets you emulate the quirks of older Windows versions if apps start complaining. Why would XP have that if it has no ability to run older Windows applications? Moron.
I had to go buy all new versions of games that I had for DOS in order to play them through Windows 95/98 because of the architectural changes in the OS.
1.) Windows 95/98 was built on top of DOS. You would have been able to run your DOS programs just fine. There were no "architectural changes" in Windows 95/98.
2.) This has absolutely nothing with what I was talking about, because those are DOS programs. I said Windows programs. Again, moron.
The Star Wars flight sim games called Xwing and Tie Fighter are the games I had to repurchase.
Then you wasted your money because they ran just fine under Windows 98. How do I know? I PLAYED THEM. Windows 98 is built on top of MS-DOS.
Some games that I used in DOS don't work at all anymore.
Again, has nothing to do with anything because I said Windows programs from 10 years ago. I said nothing about DOS. DOS was thankfully disposed of in the NT line of Windows and brought to the masses via XP.
A lib change in Linux is different than a kernel change in Windows that prevents games from running at all.
Haha, thanks for the "info." I love that you're trying to inform me when you're completely uninformed...
As far as Linux goes, fire up an RPM you got in 1997 and see if it runs fine. Let me know how it goes. Next.
Upgrade a lib and you are done...or to help the customer just statically link the libs anyway,which is what should be done for commercial apps. Don't alienate users by making them worry about the libs.
Still doesn't change the fact that older RPMs expect things in certain places, expect a certain kernel behavior, expect certain prerequisites that might not be met because they've been replace dor changed names, etc. etc.
Windows does not have this problem. The solutions I described would help Linux get over this major hassle. Next time, however, I suggest reading up on what you're talking about before you reply about something and make yourself look completely uninformed.
Nested, and why that tired joke is modded +5 is a mystery. BTW: Multiple nested (circular? groan) OS'es has been done a lot, not to mention by some of the teams coding these different projects (just look for the screenshots)
This is another weird troll, there have been a lot of them lately. They attack Linux, but rather than with logical things, they say somewhat nonsensical things that have little to do with the problems with Linux and often are complete opposites. Then they tack on faint praise for Linux at the end so that it looks like it came from a Linux supporter.
.NET is a "new and different toolkit" that most Windows programmers are totally unfamiliar with, do you?
When you "go to WalMart and buy a new printer" the reason it "works in Windows" is that there was a DISK IN THE BOX WITH THE PRINTER WITH THE DRIVER ON IT!!! This has nothing to do with the "ease of downloading drivers". To the average user, a driver for either Windows or Linux on the net might as well be on Pluto, both are equally and utterly impossible for them to get or use. This appears to be an attempt to deflect critisism that the real advantage of Windows is it's monopooly position so that drivers are only written for it.
Every single toolkit for Linux has a Windows port, and are used quite a bit, to write all that "freeware" you are talking about. I recieve huge numbers of questions about the Windows version of my FLTK toolkit, more than about the Linux version, so no foolish claiming they are not used. And I'd like you to explain why there is so much interest in a free software toolkit on Windows (and it's not from Linux fans trying to be portable, some of the users are so stupid they don't know WIndows accepts forward slashes in the filenames and tried to submit a patch to reverse them all!). By definition Windows has at least the same number of toolkits as Linux. Then you can add on the dozens of Windows-only toolkits, including FOUR from Microsoft itself. This I find particularily insulting, as you are basically saying that "innovation" is a bad idea, except when a single powerful entity does it. Face it, you cannot "innovate" and not be "different", and that means there will be multiple solutions to the same problem!
In my experience old software is about the same on Linux and Windows. *really* old software appears to work on both of them. With the appearance of C++ and really large shared libraries, old software started to break on new systems. I certainly have encountered plenty of large Windows applications that will not run on Windows XP. At work we are still running W2K and NT because Houdini will not run on the newer system. (The Linux distributors are idiots for not testing old software, however. In many cases just copying the libraries off my older machine will make the software work, with no conflicts at all. They really should include those things!)
You also realize that
Xen
Try these :-
i on =projects&Go.x=11&Go.y=9
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=photo+album§
i wonder HOW MUCH serenity's company PAID OSNEWS TO PUBLISH THIS ADVERTISEMENT, which looks like a review.
quote: "I AGGREED NOT TO PUBLISH BENCHMARKS", because they show serenity is a crap!!!
Does it (or will it) support DirectX? This is the main reason I stopped using VMWare to do everything in Windows. I still had to reboot for a lot of games.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
Thanks--I hadn't realized there was really a distinction other than for marketing purposes.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Your statement about drivers is essentially ass-speak. The drivers for the Windows box that are included on the CD are if the generic ones don't work. In contrast, the Linux distro (barring the user being smart enough to recompile a kernel successfully) with most distros' default kernels, is quite sufficient for the ABC corp, XYZ-68 printer bought at wal-mart for $50. On Windows, there might be drivers included with Windows, the generic might work... and it might not. The same is true for Linux. It's also true, to a lesser extent, on MacOS.
As I said in a previous post, "Backwards compatibility is for those people who can't write new software." If you're using *really* old software, there's probably a reason, and I respect your choice to run said *really* old sotware. However, on the same token, you can't expect to upgrade your OS and keep compatibility with that *really* old software. If you're running programs dating to the 1970s, written in some obsolete language like FORTRAN IV, you deserve to have your chain pulled, and move to something more recent. If you're so dependent on old versions of shared libraries, mightn't it be a good idea to find a similar program in a more recent version of those shared libraries, but still compatible? Or find a way to make the old software work on the new OS with all the new software? Example: When KDE 3.2-beta1 came out, XMMS was (and is) using GTK+-1.x, and glib1. The artsd 1.2.0 and its betas used glib2. Glib1 and Glib2 can't communicate with each other without breaking each other. Hence, XMMS was unable to use artsd as the output mechanism. The most obvious (to Joe Luser) solution, moving XMMS to gtk2, was not the simplest, or the most elegant. The eventual solution was to write a helper program that could communicate with artsd somehow (IANAP, so I don't know how this was done, I just know it was done) that XMMS could talk to.
So you see, the solution to backwards compatibility is not black and white. Nor is it even really grey. You can "innovate" without being "different" but then you turn out Microsoft products. "innovation" only happens when someone is not afraid to be different, be ahead of the flock, become the ruler. For this, I applaud the developers of the Y window system, because they're taking the plunge and breaking some compatibility to truly innovate.
(break out your buzzword bingo cards as you read that)
This is not the sig you're looking for.