Stephen Harris wrote:

I have a Windows XP machine that I don't use very often, but I leave it powered up because once in a blue moon I need to remotely access it (eg from work), and to keep the Antivirus software up to date. When I do use it at the console I'm mostly doing basic video editting or transcoding (eg from transferred TiVo content). I sometimes play older games on it (eg Carmaggedon or Worms 2; I'm not into Warcrack, or City Of Heros or anything that needs a super-duper gaming card).

Carmaggedon, damn that's old. I remember that, Ultima IV, Duke Nukem, yeah good times...

I also have an aging Linux machine. This is my main workstation, although I primarily access it as a server (ssh into it, screen). I do occaisionally use the console as an X display, eg when scanning stuff or previewing my nroff documents before sending them to the printer. This machine has all my email, runs leafnode etc etc.

Old PCs make good X-terminals.

What I'd like to do is run them both as virtual instances on a new machine (quad core duo) I've ordered. What I would really like to have is something like the dom0 being on tty0, map the Linux domU consoles to tty1->5, allow the Linux domU X server to run fullscreen on tty6, and have the windows GUI appear fullscreen on tty7.

I have been looking at ways to try and get the SDL of Xen to use either the Linux framebuffer, or direct VGA, but the Xen implementation needs X. I think the Xen framebuffer is none standard due to dom0 actually being a VM and there is a hidden Xen console that actually has direct control of the VGA adapter.

I really don't want to remotely access the windows GUI (it makes video editting harder, and game playing almost impossible), and would want to avoid displaying it inside another X session. Ideally it'd feel like a "real" machine.

Yes you'll need the SDL Window for Windows game playing or video editing, but I think you can bring that SDL Window up on a remote X-terminal (if you have a good local network, gigabit?) or a local X-terminal in dom0.

Does this sound like a feasible option?

I suggest doing a dom0 X-terminal displaying a list of domU X servers to handle it and have each domU have X servers running advertising themselves with their VM names, then use the X-picker to pick which domU to connect to (can use audio server for remote sound). You could run 2 or more X-terminal virtual consoles to get more simultaneous sessions. Still can use the old PC as yet another X-terminal.

If you create a special xen bridge on the loopback driver you can keep all this traffic localhost and high-speed.

There still may be a way to get the SDL consoles to use a virtual console framebuffer or the the VGA/XGA adapter directly. If you find out how let me know.

-Ross

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