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NetBSD Adopts NetBSD/xen for Internal Use

Posted by timothy on from the do-not-take-orally dept.

agent dero writes "With NetBSD 2.0, the NetBSD Foundation also released support for a new port, NetBSD/xen. A version of NetBSD meant to run on top of the Xen virtual machine monitor. In this press release the foundation has announced that it is using the port and Xen for much of its internal development, citing security, and ease of use as main reasons for its adoption."

4 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. If only we had the WindowsXP port by mnmn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... I could switch between a build world of netbsd, and Counter Strike real fast!!!.

    That makes me wonder if I can share one nic between the OSes, or put in two NICs, assign one for each OS.

    Apart from Zen, would be cool to do a complete replace-boot, as in the OS state is frozen and written to harddisk (some laptop bioses do this), and the state of another OS is read... making switching between OSes, as fast as reading the same amount of data as your used up ram.

    Heck I'll just buy another machine and use a KVM switch.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  2. Erm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Maybe I'm missing something, but how is Xen different from VirtualPC or VMWare?

    1. Re:Erm by vulcan_pupil · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Xen has been benchmarked to outperform VMWare in certain applications. In addition, Xen allows you to migrate a domain (instance of client OS) to another machine running Xen, live over the network.

      Although, another difference is that the OS must be ported to run on Xen. But Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD have been ported.

  3. KVMs (are evil) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Beware the KVM switch my son,
    The mouse emulator that bites,
    The cords that catch.
    Beware the loss of functionality.
    And shun buttons 3 4 and 5, natch.

    Now that I've set the Reverend Dodgson spinning in his grave, let me translate.

    Smarter KVMs have a big problem with fancy pointing devices. Many are designed to emulate a mouse to each attached CPU. For various reasons, they emulate a two button MSFT scroll mouse. So anything fancier is lost functionality.

    I did find (just after purchasing a different one, natch) a USB KVM that is more like the old hard switches, and doesn't do emulation, that should avoid this problem. Of course you can no longer switch CPUs from your keyboard, because it doesn't trap the keyboard output.