Citrix Xen vs VMWare ESXi

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> I can't address your Xen vs ESXi question but don't rule out VMWare
> Server (not ESX or ESXi). It's a free download that you run on top of

Personally, I've had nothing but trouble with VMWare Server.  Really dumb
problems like ... when you install vmware server onto a linux platform, of
course you don't have IE, but when you want to send Ctrl-Alt-Del to the
guest OS, you can only do it in IE ... and ... I insert a CD, then the os
installation prompts for CD #2 ... so I change disks ... and some sort of
bug causes the guest OS to see a mixture of files from CD #1 and CD #2 at
the same time ... this problem goes away if I reboot VMWare Server (and of
course the guest OS).  But doesn't go away if I simply reboot the guest OS.

Really weird.  I think it's buggy and I wouldn't recommend it for anyone,
for any purpose.  Unless you have a special use case of some sort, which
that's the only solution ...

I would always opt for VMWare Workstation (and pay $150) instead of using
VMWare Server.  But VMWare Workstation can't automatically boot up and start
a guest during boot scripts ...  "Can't" is a subjective term.  Cuz I made
it happen.  But it wasn't easy.