Virtual Windows Servers on Linux laptop...

[me at mattgillen.net (Matthew Gillen)]

Grant M. wrote:
> Nathan Meyers wrote:
>> Are you talking about multiple boot, or running those Windows systems
>> under virtual machines hosted by Linux? If the latter, vmware does the
>> job nicely and supports (AFAIK) every Windows release. Of course, you'll
>> need a pretty beefy box to run 2 or 3 vmware sessions.
> 
> No, I don't need them all running at once, only one session at a time. I
> just would like them all ready to go, and to have the needed *nix tools
> to snoop traffic & troubleshoot. The plan is that each would be
> configured, and I'd start the one that I needed. I could then use
> ethereal or whatever to sniff the network, and whatever other tools I
> might need.
> 
> I've looked at VMWare, and that was my first thought, but I thought I'd
> ask just the same. Has anyone tested Xen, and if so, have they compared
> it VMWare?

Xen won't work with an OS that isn't designed to work with it (Windoze,
probably Solaris) unless you have a very new processor.  Linux and BSD have
kernel patches to allow them to run on "older" processors.

There's a few other options besides vmware though, like QEmu:
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
(disclaimer: I've never used it, but heard good things)
I believe QEmu will allow you to simulate a sparc using an x86, so you could
test the non-x86 version of solaris if you want...
It's free, but there's an "accelerator" you can buy (KQEMU) that allows win2k
to run at native speeds as a guest os (essentially bringing it up to vmware's
level of emulation).

HTH,
Matt

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