[Discuss] Using raw host hard disk in virtual client

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On 08/04/2012 12:54:50 PM, Guy Gold wrote:
> Xen is no longer the 'hypervisor of choice' for most Linux Disotros

Xen is an odd beast.  I played with it once and I didn't like the tight 
coupling between the guest and host (upgrade host kernel and guest 
doesn't boot I think happened to me), but there is a reason for that.  
It is a para-virtualization thingie.  It is more complicated to manage 
but it can run more guests in less hardware, and I think it can do some 
IO more efficiently; I think it can get rid of some double copies by 
letting the guest hit the hardware more directly, and this requires the 
tighter integration between guest and host.

I have a Linux "box" on Linode, it seems to work well at a reasonable 
price, and I think they do it via Xen.

In general I think you want to stay away from setting up a Xen 
environment unless you have good reason to go there.  The pure VM of 
KVM or Virtualbox is more likely what one wants.

-kb