[CentOS] virtualization on the desktop a myth, or a reality?

[Les Mikesell]

On 3/2/2011 2:06 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>
>>> Differently put, we already do this with servers. One big&    fast Quad
>>> XEON can run many client's Virtual Machines, very easily. And many of
>>> those Virtual Machines host a few hundred websites, thus saving a lot
>>> on rack space, electricity, etc, etc.
>>
>> Servers are normally optimized with lots of disk spindles to spread
>> multi-user use of the one remaining slow resource around.
>
> True, but in a one-user-one-drive (or 2 drives in RAID1) setup, the
> disk I/O wouldn't be a problem, or the limiting factor.

I thought some of your scenarios involved doing things in both os's at 
once.  Which will make them want the disk head to be in different places 
at the same time.

>> Give the VM its own disk and it won't have much impact on the host.
>> You'll probably still want to run video-intense things natively, though.
>>   And if you aren't a developer doing throwaway tests, what's the point
>> of using a VM for resource-intensive things anyway?
>
>
> There are many reasons why one would do this kind of things. Just
> thinking of my normal day-to-day work, I often start-up a new VM to
> test certain functionality of some software package, without affecting
> anything on my PC.

If it is at work, why not park the VM on a server that is probably 
better equipped?

> My laptop runs Windows 7 at this stage, purely for
> Quickbooks and a few other Windows-only applications. So, in this case
> it would be nice to have Windows running permanently on my PC which
> will allow the accounts person to still access it remotely on her PC
> and I can still do stuff in Quickbooks as needed. But, I would prefer
> real-time access.

Then why not run it as the host?  It probably handles sleep mode and 
waking up on different networks better than Centos anyway.  Or as a VM, 
park it on a server where everyone who needs access can reach it remotely.

> I think the major problem here is that the tools at hand, i.e. XEN +
> Virtual Machine Manager (or for that matter VirtualBox / VMWare / etc)
> isn't yet optimized for this kind of usage.
>
> I guess we need better VGA-passthrough drivers, and / or a more
> optimized interface. Accessing the VM's via VNC / Remote Desktop / XN
> / etc is also probably also a possibility.

Have you tried vmware player with vmware tools installed in the guest 
for comparison?  Or NX connecting to freenx in the case of a Linux guest?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com