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Ubuntu Picks Upstart, KVM

Posted by kdawson on from the their-own-sweet-way dept.

derrida writes "Because the traditional System V init daemon (SysVinit) does not deal well with modern hardware, including hotplug devices, USB hard and flash drives, and network-mounted filesystems, Ubuntu replaced it with the upstart init daemon. Several other replacements for SysVinit are also available. One of the most prominent, initng, is available for Debian and runs on Ubuntu. Solaris uses SMF (Service Management Facility) and Mac OS uses launchd. Over time, Ubuntu will likely come to incorporate features of each of these systems into Upstart. Furthermore, heading in a different direction from its main rivals, Ubuntu Linux will use KVM as its primary virtualization software. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server both use the Xen virtualization software, a 'hypervisor' layer that lets multiple operating systems run on the same computer. In contrast, the KVM software runs on top of a version of Linux, the 'host' operating system that provides a foundation for other 'guest' operating systems to run in a virtual mode." Slashdot shares a corporate overlord with Linux.com.

1 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. KVM less of a surprise than you might think... by adamkennedy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At last year's Linux.Conf.Au I attended both the virtualization mini-conf and kernel hacker virtualization talks with interest, since I dabble a bit in virtualization but not enough to keep up to date on current trends.

    I was struck with the immense gulf in opinion between the "virtualization folks" and the "kernel folks".

    Most (possibly all) of the talks in the virtualization stream could be summarized as "Xen! Xen! Xen! Yay! Yay! Yay! Xen, xen, xen, xen xen, xen, xen. Xen! Xen Roxx0rs! Xen! Clients! Xen! Xen! XEN!!!". Lots of action, lots of progress, lots of excitement, lots of Real People in Real Companies doing Real Work and discovering Best Practices.

    It was quite a shock to walk into the "kernel hacker QA" with kernel maintainers from several big linux distros and some major names and here a simple "Xen sucks. Use KVM". Talking to one unnamed kernel hacker who actually wrote a big chunk of Xen code, even he basically flat out said Xen was a terribly solution which he only saw as a stop gap until KVN had picked up some speed.

    So the impression I walked away with was that while Xen is the current poster child for virtualization, its days are numbered.

    Once KVM has had time time to move away from being shiny new code that only a kernel dev could love to a Real Product Xen is going to have its ass kicked by the new Blessed Child.

    Fortunately I don't have anything invested in either side (I mostly use qemu because my needs are more for pure isolation and speed isn't needed at all) but it looks like this match is shaping up as a hell of a flame war.

    And by the sounds of it, Ubuntu just threw lit up the first flamethrower on behalf of KVM.

    Now where did I put those marshmallows.