Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:06:02PM -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > So my guess would be to make kvm/qemu bigger.. make it work in Windows. Apart from WinKVM already mentioned, you can run straight qemu on Windows. It works like a charm, not very fast, but good enough for testing things. We are even able to cross-compile it using the Fedora Windows cross-compiler project! The story with the higher level management tools is not very good. You can compile libvirt on Windows (in fact, we cross-compile it in Fedora -- see mingw32-libvirt). However this only includes the client side library. Useful for connecting to remote libvirt instances running on real operating systems, but the daemon *cannot* be compiled on Windows meaning you can't control a local qemu.exe. virt-manager would in theory work on Windows (using eg. Active Python). Since we're only interested in cross-compiling things [treating Windows as a weird badly-behaved embedded OS] we can't do that, because Python itself has a broken build system that doesn't understand cross-compilation [Python issues 5404, 1597850]. Cross-compiling any C program that uses libvirt is usually easy. I've also had the OCaml programs like virt-top and guestfs-browser cross-compiled to Windows. The OCaml cross-chain isn't in Fedora, but ironically Debian took that work and ran with it, and they provide a decent OCaml cross-chain now. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones New in Fedora 11: Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows programs, test, and build Windows installers. Over 70 libraries supprt'd http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW http://www.annexia.org/fedora_mingw -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 06/18/2011 12:23 AM, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 12:06 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > >> So my guess would be to make kvm/qemu bigger.. make it work in Windows. > > Well, the clue's in the name: > > "KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine)" > > I don't know any of the details of the implementation of KVM, but the > fact that it's written as a kernel module and has 'kernel' in its name > implies it's rather Linux kernel specific, to me =) You could have qemu > and virt-manager run on Windows, I guess - perhaps they even do - but > the KVM bit would have to be supplied by something else. AFAIK, there's a project called WinKVM [1] which is a port of KVM into Windows, sot sure if it usable or not, I don't have Windows :) See presentation at KVM Forum 2010 [2] [1] https://github.com/ddk50/winkvm [2] http://www.linux-kvm.org/wiki/images/8/8a/WinKVM-KVMForum2010.pdf -- Athmane Madjoudj -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 12:06 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > So my guess would be to make kvm/qemu bigger.. make it work in Windows. Well, the clue's in the name: "KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine)" I don't know any of the details of the implementation of KVM, but the fact that it's written as a kernel module and has 'kernel' in its name implies it's rather Linux kernel specific, to me =) You could have qemu and virt-manager run on Windows, I guess - perhaps they even do - but the KVM bit would have to be supplied by something else. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 16:59, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 18:37, Dave Jones wrote: >> I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. >> Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be >> related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > > 1) It works in windows > 2) It works in mac os-x > 3) Oracle has put a lot of money/effort in pushing it via searches > I spent a week in SC and ran into various people using VirtualBox. I then sat down and used it myself because it solved a very big problem. I had a laptop which I could not install anything but Windows on.. but I wanted to run various ISOs I got from the show. VirtualBox ended up being the solution and it worked like a charm. The UI was easy enough to play with and its wizards walked me through any processes I was unsure of. In the end I had 10 different systems installed and running. So my guess would be to make kvm/qemu bigger.. make it work in Windows. -- Stephen J Smoogen. "The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance." Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University. "Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle." -- Ian MacLaren -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Wed, 2011-06-01 at 20:42 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > I've seen some reports of F15 not working in Virtualbox. There's a few > > notes online about possible fixes. Is there some way we can better test > > this in the future (I'm thinking about QA but that might not be the right > > place). > > > > Smolt has virtualbox rated as pretty common: > > > > http://smolts.org/static/stats/stats.html > > > > Just seems like we're potentially missing a lot of potential users there. > > It's preventing the default live CD from running. > > I haven't heard this, in fact I heard the opposite - F15 was working > well in VBox and it was the only virt environment capable of running > Shell. Where are you seeing these reports? > > QA does test virtualization - we test each pre-release as both host and > guest - but using Fedora's supported and packaged stack, > qemu/kvm/virt-manager, not VirtualBox, which is not a part of Fedora and > cannot be for policy reasons. > This was someone who pinged me on IRC using the Live CD (gnome) to install. We found similar issues on google but (and I'm sorry for this) I can't remember who pinged me :) If the person who pinged me on IRC is on devel, speak up! -Mike -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Wed, 2011-06-01 at 20:42 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > I've seen some reports of F15 not working in Virtualbox. There's a few > notes online about possible fixes. Is there some way we can better test > this in the future (I'm thinking about QA but that might not be the right > place). > > Smolt has virtualbox rated as pretty common: > > http://smolts.org/static/stats/stats.html > > Just seems like we're potentially missing a lot of potential users there. > It's preventing the default live CD from running. I haven't heard this, in fact I heard the opposite - F15 was working well in VBox and it was the only virt environment capable of running Shell. Where are you seeing these reports? QA does test virtualization - we test each pre-release as both host and guest - but using Fedora's supported and packaged stack, qemu/kvm/virt-manager, not VirtualBox, which is not a part of Fedora and cannot be for policy reasons. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Mon, 2011-06-13 at 10:25 +0200, Vít Ondruch wrote: > Dne 11.6.2011 16:21, Gilboa Davara napsal(a): > > > > On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 16:25 +0100, Tom Hughes wrote: > >> On 10/06/11 16:12, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > >> > >>> Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > >> > > They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from > source. All the information is here: > >>> 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them > >>> with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. > >> Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was > >> quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it > >> though ;-) > > Actually, even if you build the driver and get it to work, you're still > > stuck with the Windows' driver signature enforcement which makes > > installing unsigned drivers (such as one that you build yourself) > > more-or-less impossible (I tried every possible software / hack-ware to > > disable it and failed; ended up getting used to manual F8/Disable > > signature enforcement boot sequence). > > > > I fear that as long as RH doesn't MS the (protection) fees required to > > "sign" the QXL driver, I fear that this issue will remain unresolved. > > (On the other hand, nothing stops -me- from doing it and yet I don't see > > me running to do it :)) > > May be this can help: http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Driver_Signing Thanks. - Gilboa -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Dne 11.6.2011 16:21, Gilboa Davara napsal(a): > > On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 16:25 +0100, Tom Hughes wrote: >> On 10/06/11 16:12, Michael Cronenworth wrote: >> >>> Richard W.M. Jones wrote: >> > They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from source. All the information is here: >>> 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them >>> with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. >> Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was >> quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it >> though ;-) > Actually, even if you build the driver and get it to work, you're still > stuck with the Windows' driver signature enforcement which makes > installing unsigned drivers (such as one that you build yourself) > more-or-less impossible (I tried every possible software / hack-ware to > disable it and failed; ended up getting used to manual F8/Disable > signature enforcement boot sequence). > > I fear that as long as RH doesn't MS the (protection) fees required to > "sign" the QXL driver, I fear that this issue will remain unresolved. > (On the other hand, nothing stops -me- from doing it and yet I don't see > me running to do it :)) May be this can help: http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Driver_Signing Vit -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 07:09:19PM +0100, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) wrote: > > while you're thinking about what to do in the area of virt-clone / > > cloning VMs, I recon it would be nice not only to be able to clone > > VMs that have image files, but also those that have a Logical Volume > > as their disk device. > > What I'd really like to see would be fast/lazy cloning of LVs: > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=638188 That would certainly be a good basis for efficiency and performance enhancement of a VM clone for which the storage is in LVM, but with or without LVM lvlazyclone, to virt-clone or to virt-clone --lazy isn't a showstopper is it? Kind regards, -- kanarip -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 07:09:19PM +0100, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) wrote: > while you're thinking about what to do in the area of virt-clone / > cloning VMs, I recon it would be nice not only to be able to clone > VMs that have image files, but also those that have a Logical Volume > as their disk device. What I'd really like to see would be fast/lazy cloning of LVs: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=638188 Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines. Supports shell scripting, bindings from many languages. http://libguestfs.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Gilboa Davara wrote: > >> > 1. Easy setup of networking (bridged). >> Just to followup, to setup bridged net on kvm I need to reboot my server. >> That's a non-starter. > > And long as you're will to do the hard work yourself, there's no need to > reboot your machine. > > 1. Create a bridge configuration for each target network devices (E.g. > ifcfg-vbr0 for ifcfg-eth0). > 2. Mark the ethX device as IP-less and boot-protocol-less (IPADDR=, > IPV6_ADDR=, BOOTPROTO=none) and bridge controlled (BRIDGE=brX), > configure the bridge device (DEVICE=brX, TYPE=Brdige, IPADDR, IPV6_ADDR, > etc) > 2. Disable NM on both the bridge and the Ethernet device > (NM_CONTROLLED=no). > 3. Restart NM. (Or disable it if all your Ethernet devices are bridged) > 4. Enable and start network service. > (If you don't want to interrupt incoming connections, you'll have to > start each network device by hand) > 5. Profit. > > At worse, you'll have a 2-3 second interruption while the bridge assumes > the IP address originally held by the Ethernet device. > > - Gilboa > > Thanks for the info. Still, VB allows me to setup bridge net with 1 click of the gui. I'd sure like to see that in qemu/kvm. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 19:30:10 +0200, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > > As for the subject at hand, -I- find VB a far inferior solution when it > > comes to SMP and IO (disk/network) performance. > > With the latest VB and the SATA controller I see faster performance in the > VM over bare hardware. This is because KVM sync-es by default, one has to use cache=unsafe to get the same (possibly better) performace with KVM as with the other hypervisors. And sure it is then all faster than natively sync-ing OS on bare hardware. Regards, Jan -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
- Original message - > > As for the subject at hand, -I- find VB a far inferior solution when it > comes to SMP and IO (disk/network) performance. With the latest VB and the SATA controller I see faster performance in the VM over bare hardware. > Sure, during the years I've create a large chunk of scripts required to > deploy and configure qemu VM's, but once you pass the "I fear the qemu > command line" phase, KVM runs circles around VB. (Let alone having to > relay on a unsupported 3'rd party kernel module - a huge no-no in server > deployments) VB kernel modules are GPL licensed. > Nothing beats starting a VM in snapshot mode, trashing it, and reverting > to the original without as much a single mouse click... VB supports snapshots too. I use them frequently. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
> > 1. Easy setup of networking (bridged). > Just to followup, to setup bridged net on kvm I need to reboot my server. > That's a non-starter. And long as you're will to do the hard work yourself, there's no need to reboot your machine. 1. Create a bridge configuration for each target network devices (E.g. ifcfg-vbr0 for ifcfg-eth0). 2. Mark the ethX device as IP-less and boot-protocol-less (IPADDR=, IPV6_ADDR=, BOOTPROTO=none) and bridge controlled (BRIDGE=brX), configure the bridge device (DEVICE=brX, TYPE=Brdige, IPADDR, IPV6_ADDR, etc) 2. Disable NM on both the bridge and the Ethernet device (NM_CONTROLLED=no). 3. Restart NM. (Or disable it if all your Ethernet devices are bridged) 4. Enable and start network service. (If you don't want to interrupt incoming connections, you'll have to start each network device by hand) 5. Profit. At worse, you'll have a 2-3 second interruption while the bridge assumes the IP address originally held by the Ethernet device. - Gilboa -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 16:25 +0100, Tom Hughes wrote: > On 10/06/11 16:12, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > > > Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > > > >> They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from > >> source. All the information is here: > > > > 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them > > with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. > > Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was > quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it > though ;-) Actually, even if you build the driver and get it to work, you're still stuck with the Windows' driver signature enforcement which makes installing unsigned drivers (such as one that you build yourself) more-or-less impossible (I tried every possible software / hack-ware to disable it and failed; ended up getting used to manual F8/Disable signature enforcement boot sequence). I fear that as long as RH doesn't MS the (protection) fees required to "sign" the QXL driver, I fear that this issue will remain unresolved. (On the other hand, nothing stops -me- from doing it and yet I don't see me running to do it :)) As for the subject at hand, -I- find VB a far inferior solution when it comes to SMP and IO (disk/network) performance. Sure, during the years I've create a large chunk of scripts required to deploy and configure qemu VM's, but once you pass the "I fear the qemu command line" phase, KVM runs circles around VB. (Let alone having to relay on a unsupported 3'rd party kernel module - a huge no-no in server deployments) Nothing beats starting a VM in snapshot mode, trashing it, and reverting to the original without as much a single mouse click... I do use VB on VT-incapable machines such as my ATOM netbook - but that's about it. - Gilboa -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Sat, 2011-06-11 at 09:24 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > I'd suggest you purchase a new card reader. You do realize you can > pick them up for around $10? I'd even pay you $20 if you find me one that writes those strange edge flash cards used by freeflight GPS devices. Tom -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Hi, On 06/10/2011 06:12 PM, Thomas Sailer wrote: > - USB is not really workable. Trying it just now with up2date F15 > crashed qemu (guest rawhide) when trying to assign a host USB device to > the guest > If you're seriously interested in usb redirection, I'm working on seriously improving that and will continue to work on that for a while to come. I would love some feedback wrt my current code. Note that I'm mainly focusing on usb redirection over the network, so that the redirected device does not need to be on the same machine as where the vm is hosted (think viewing a vm from another machine with vnc/spice and then wanting to redirect a usb device from the vnc client machine). Currently my network redirection code is already working in a few scenarios where direct host usb redirection is not working I do plan to eventually fixup direct host usb redirection too (by rewriting it to use libusb and essentially be the same as the network redir variant). But for now you will get the best experience with the network redirection, even if you use it over localhost. For some instructions on setting up a test environment with my latest wip, see: http://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/9682.html Regards, Hans -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 06/11/2011 05:35 AM, Garrett Holmstrom wrote: > Why would many prospective contributors choose to work on KVM's > desktop usability when VirtualBox's is already superior? Because they like KVM and use it because of other advantages like performance? Because they disagree with handing copyright over to Oracle or contributing code under permissive licenses? They don't want to use third party kernel modules? There could be any number of reasons. Rahul -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > Customers ask us to make the changes they want -- for server use and > scalability -- and KVM is absolutely the best in that area as a > result. See many recent benchmarks. > > Usability on single desktops is, well ... we do our best. > > If you want excellent desktop usability, then organize a group and > make the work and patches happen. Why would many prospective contributors choose to work on KVM's desktop usability when VirtualBox's is already superior? -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Quoting "Przemek Klosowski" : > > Make it one command: > > yum install > http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm > > (or VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.i686.rpm for 32-bit systems) > OMG, I am such a dick for not even thinking of that! The problem is, I use Ubuntu/APT also, so sometimes I can confuse myself as to which system (yum/apt) does what. Nice work. Cheers Chris Jones This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Quoting "Thomas Sailer" : > > Also, I have a strange card reader which I would love to use under some > form of virtualisation, as the accompanying application only runs under > very old versions of windows. > > The card reader has the misfeature that it requires firmware to be > loaded by the PC. To get the firmware, it connects, waits about 4 > seconds, and if it doesn't get anything it disconnects and reconnects > again. Now qemu/kvm is currently much too slow for this, until the host > notices the USB device and hands it over to the guest, about 5-10sec > pass. > > Tom I'd suggest you purchase a new card reader. You do realize you can pick them up for around $10? If I had a card reader with that much drama just to get it to operate, it'd be out the door in no time! Cheers Chris Jones This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > If you want excellent desktop usability, then organize a group and > make the work and patches happen. I knew this would be the response, but I do not hold it against you. If anyone wants to hire me and pay me to do this full-time job's worth of work I'd be glad to. ;) -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 02:13:39PM -0400, Neal Becker wrote: > Just to followup, to setup bridged net on kvm I need to reboot my server. > That's a non-starter. I would be very surprised if rebooting was really needed. (But conversely *not* very surprised if the instructions said you need to reboot because explaining how to do it without that is harder ...) In fact the instructions I'm reading say you need to restart the network service (not strictly necessary either). Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any software inside the virtual machine. Supports Linux and Windows. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:12:50AM -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > > They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from > > source. All the information is here: > > This is not an argument for libvirt/kvm/qemu/spice but against. > > Here's some constructive advice: > > 1. Give the Red Hat virtualization tools one, unique name and package it > under that name. Having a new name for every new feature isn't helping > your cause. Call it "RHVM" even. Anything is better than the current > situation and I'm sure a marketing wizard would love to tackle this. > 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them > with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. > 3. Transparent network access. Having to setup bridges or manually edit > config files is a big turn off to some folks. I know virt-manager has a > GUI for some operations, but I still see editing config files a > recommended method in recent mailing list postings. > 4. Support USB 2.0+ in a easy-to-use way. Under VB, I can just click on > a device I want to use, while the VM is running, and use it. When I'm > done, I uncheck the device, again, while the VM is running, and it > disconnects from the VM and returns for use to my Fedora box. > 5. Exporting VMs must be a two-click process. Not a 9 command, terminal > operation. Importing VMs must be just as easy. As they say, you get what you pay for. Customers ask us to make the changes they want -- for server use and scalability -- and KVM is absolutely the best in that area as a result. See many recent benchmarks. Usability on single desktops is, well ... we do our best. If you want excellent desktop usability, then organize a group and make the work and patches happen. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com Fedora now supports 80 OCaml packages (the OPEN alternative to F#) http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_red_hat_and_fedora -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Neal Becker wrote: > Dave Jones wrote: > >> On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: >> > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: >> > >> > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved >> > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, >> > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases >> > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. >> > > Virtualbox. >> > > >> > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this >> > > area. >> > >> > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this >> > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel >> > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having >> > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common >> > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't >> > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers >> > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible >> > for that. >> >> I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. >> Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be >> related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. >> >> Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change >> in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? >> >> Dave >> > > 1. Easy setup of networking (bridged). Just to followup, to setup bridged net on kvm I need to reboot my server. That's a non-starter. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 14:29 +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > There's a bug for these issues (no resolution though): > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=541230 My case was way more extreme, one core pretty much fully used by ksmd. It was with late F14, just before the release of F15. > It's also worth noting that there are lots of knobs to tune KSM in > /etc/ksmtuned.conf. More information is here: Yes, I eventually found out how to disable ksmd. I think that's not the point, the point is that kvm/qemu/virt-manager could be improved in the usability department. And that means it should do a reasonable job without the user first modify lots of tunables. virt-manager has gone a long way of making qemu/kvm a lot more useable, but there's still room for improvements: - I had occasional problems with the keyboard mapping - Storage management is not always logical to me, I didn't find out how to reuse an existing qcow2 image, so in the end I edited config files manually - USB is not really workable. Trying it just now with up2date F15 crashed qemu (guest rawhide) when trying to assign a host USB device to the guest Tom -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 10/06/11 16:54, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > Tom Hughes on 06/10/2011 10:25 AM wrote: >> Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was >> quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it >> though ;-) >> >> That was only the graphics driver anyway - what I really want is the >> agent for the clipboard protocol. >> >> To be fair you can download both the drivers and the agent in prebuilt >> form at http://spice-space.org/download.html but only for 32 bit Windows >> at the moment. > > I'm not sure why you're using this argument as a positive thing. In VB > (or any third-party VM software) installing the guest additions for > 32-bit /and/ 64-bit OSes is as easy and clicking "Install" and > rebooting. No driver downloads. No config file editing. Until > libvirt/qemu/kvm/spice provide a similar solution there is no comparison. I wasn't trying to suggest that the current situation is perfect, just that it isn't always as bad as the DDK thing sounded. Tom -- Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu) http://compton.nu/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Tom Hughes on 06/10/2011 10:25 AM wrote: > Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was > quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it > though ;-) > > That was only the graphics driver anyway - what I really want is the > agent for the clipboard protocol. > > To be fair you can download both the drivers and the agent in prebuilt > form at http://spice-space.org/download.html but only for 32 bit Windows > at the moment. I'm not sure why you're using this argument as a positive thing. In VB (or any third-party VM software) installing the guest additions for 32-bit /and/ 64-bit OSes is as easy and clicking "Install" and rebooting. No driver downloads. No config file editing. Until libvirt/qemu/kvm/spice provide a similar solution there is no comparison. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 10/06/11 16:12, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > >> They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from >> source. All the information is here: > > 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them > with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. Actually building the driver (once I'd downloaded the 620Mb DDK) was quite easy. I'm still scratching my head over how to actually install it though ;-) That was only the graphics driver anyway - what I really want is the agent for the clipboard protocol. To be fair you can download both the drivers and the agent in prebuilt form at http://spice-space.org/download.html but only for 32 bit Windows at the moment. Tom -- Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu) http://compton.nu/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 6/10/11 10:39 AM, Mark Bidewell wrote: > To add to the point about graphics support there is also the fact that > GNOME3/Unity will only run with accelerated graphics which only > VirtualBox supports. I have Gnome 3 running with software GL. I'll probably be blogging about it soon, it's not quite in a mergeable state for Mesa yet but it's looking quite credible. - ajax -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from > source. All the information is here: This is not an argument for libvirt/kvm/qemu/spice but against. Here's some constructive advice: 1. Give the Red Hat virtualization tools one, unique name and package it under that name. Having a new name for every new feature isn't helping your cause. Call it "RHVM" even. Anything is better than the current situation and I'm sure a marketing wizard would love to tackle this. 2. Make guest additions dead simple to install. Having to compile them with a Windows DDK is not dead simple. 3. Transparent network access. Having to setup bridges or manually edit config files is a big turn off to some folks. I know virt-manager has a GUI for some operations, but I still see editing config files a recommended method in recent mailing list postings. 4. Support USB 2.0+ in a easy-to-use way. Under VB, I can just click on a device I want to use, while the VM is running, and use it. When I'm done, I uncheck the device, again, while the VM is running, and it disconnects from the VM and returns for use to my Fedora box. 5. Exporting VMs must be a two-click process. Not a 9 command, terminal operation. Importing VMs must be just as easy. Now, if you don't care to cater to "dumb" folk, then continue what you are doing. VirtualBox will continue to be used over anything Fedora offers. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
>> Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change >> in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? >> >> Dave >> > > 1. Easy setup of networking (bridged). > 2. Support decent graphics mode in guests. (After installing guest > additions, a > winxp guest on fedora host can run in any graphics resolution. I don't think > qemu/kvm does this). > > -- > devel mailing list > devel@lists.fedoraproject.org > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel > To add to the point about graphics support there is also the fact that GNOME3/Unity will only run with accelerated graphics which only VirtualBox supports. -- Mark Bidewell http://www.linkedin.com/in/markbidewell -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 08:22:37AM -0400, Neal Becker wrote: > 2. Support decent graphics mode in guests. (After installing guest > additions, a winxp guest on fedora host can run in any graphics > resolution. I don't think qemu/kvm does this). With SPICE, maximum resolution is 2560x1600. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com Fedora now supports 80 OCaml packages (the OPEN alternative to F#) http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_red_hat_and_fedora -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 08:08:26AM -0400, Genes MailLists wrote: >(i) Variable size image for the VM >- it grows to accommodate need Interested to know why sparse images or qcow2 don't fulfil your needs. These have been supported in KVM (and Xen) since forever. > (ii) Easy to duplicate VM image (with UUID change) > >So its easy to deploy images on same or different computers This is what I do: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/tip-my-procedure-for-cloning-a-fedora-vm/ Also I'm still looking at what to do about the "virt-clone" tool: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/virt-tools-survey-virt-clone/ > (iii) All VM data is stored in user home > > This means installing a new OS does not negatively impact VM's You can do this with KVM too. There is a performance penalty to using files (but VirtualBox has the same penalty). With old libvirt you had to set SELinux labels manually, but new versions do it for you. > (iv) Control over the network I actually prefer libvirt's default (private network with NAT) configuration. It's good for what I do which is testing lots of VMs. It's a lot better than Xen's default setting of "bugger up the network", or VMware's "first, install these binary drivers in your kernel" config. For production, I change libvirt to use a shared bridge by adjusting a couple of configuration files: http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Networking#Bridged_networking_.28aka_.22shared_physical_device.22.29 Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines. Tiny program with many powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 02:30:46PM +0200, Thomas Sailer wrote: > On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 10:24 +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote: > > > - it's memory deduplication reimplements what already in-kernel (for the > >sake of cross platform) > > Kernel deduplication runs amok on my machine. When I have two guests, > one Windows, one Rawhide, running under kvm/qemu, kernel deduplication > uses up one CPU core. For no benefit, I suspect there isn't much to > deduplicate between Windows and Rawhide. There's a bug for these issues (no resolution though): https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=541230 Originally I had ksmd turned off, but since ~ Fedora 14 I've not had any trouble with it at all. It's also worth noting that there are lots of knobs to tune KSM in /etc/ksmtuned.conf. More information is here: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization/chap-KSM.html Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines. Tiny program with many powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 06/09/2011 07:44 PM, Chris Jones wrote: > Also, for those that may not be aware, Virtualbox can be installed in > just 2 commands in your Fedora system. Assuming you have wget installed. ... > ~$ su > wget > http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm > yum install VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm > Make it one command: yum install http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm (or VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.i686.rpm for 32-bit systems) -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 10:24 +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote: > - it's memory deduplication reimplements what already in-kernel (for the >sake of cross platform) Kernel deduplication runs amok on my machine. When I have two guests, one Windows, one Rawhide, running under kvm/qemu, kernel deduplication uses up one CPU core. For no benefit, I suspect there isn't much to deduplicate between Windows and Rawhide. Tom -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 08:50 +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > The other feature is USB passthrough. (KVM can do this, but IIRC it > only works for USB 1.1 devices and it's not integrated into the UI). Last time I tried I had to specify USB device and bus numbers. This is quite unusable, as they are not stable, when reconnecting the device usually gets another device number. Some way to specify USB devices by vendor/device ID or some Manufacturer/Product/Serial string is needed. Also, I have a strange card reader which I would love to use under some form of virtualisation, as the accompanying application only runs under very old versions of windows. The card reader has the misfeature that it requires firmware to be loaded by the PC. To get the firmware, it connects, waits about 4 seconds, and if it doesn't get anything it disconnects and reconnects again. Now qemu/kvm is currently much too slow for this, until the host notices the USB device and hands it over to the guest, about 5-10sec pass. Tom -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > > Virtualbox. > > > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this > > > area. > > > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > > for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? > > Dave > 1. Easy setup of networking (bridged). 2. Support decent graphics mode in guests. (After installing guest additions, a winxp guest on fedora host can run in any graphics resolution. I don't think qemu/kvm does this). -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 06/09/2011 06:37 PM, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Long list already from others but a couple of other things that are nice (dont know if qemu has these today, but didn't used to) (i) Variable size image for the VM - it grows to accommodate need (ii) Easy to duplicate VM image (with UUID change) So its easy to deploy images on same or different computers (iii) All VM data is stored in user home This means installing a new OS does not negatively impact VM's (iv) Control over the network There are some cons - I have had it go crazy and exhaust memory - I have had problems deleting an intermediate snapshot causing troubles for later snapshots - but overall its easy to use and generally works. gene/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:18:49AM +0100, Tom Hughes wrote: > On 10/06/11 09:12, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > >On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:03:16AM +0200, tim.laurid...@gmail.com wrote: > > > >>- Running Windows application in a windows guest, runs very smooth, no > >>delay in updating the GUI. > > > >You should try new versions. I've never had a problem with delays > >updating the GUI, even in old versions. With SPICE support, access > >over the network beats everything. > > Spice is cool, I just wish there was an agent/drivers for 64 bit > Windows guests... They are available, but I think you have to build them yourself from source. All the information is here: http://spice-space.org/page/WinQXL#How_to_build_the_driver Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines. Tiny program with many powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 06:37:19PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? For me, I installed VB to check (then) Sun's Fishworks emulator, which was distributed as virtualbox image. Afterwards I stayed because: - my computer did not have VT-x/SVM (it's not relevant now, most computer have) - VB has 3D accell support for guest. Enough to test for example Ubuntu Unity, and I believe gnome-shell also. This is BIG advantage. - virt-manager storage management is IMO a mess. I created LVM LV for new virtual-machine, then went to virt-manager to add this as raw file and got lost. I know that I want raw file, but the gui is talking about raw files separately from LVM pools. - bridged networking works with standard F15 install. With virt-manager one need to disable NetworkManager. - USB passthrough works. - changing virtual CD media is easy and reliable - VB provides yum repos VirtualBox has disadvantages: - it doesn't use kvm-intel for hardware virtualisation. I cannot run KVM and VB at the same time. - it's memory deduplication reimplements what already in-kernel (for the sake of cross platform) -- Tomasz Torcz "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.plwagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 10/06/11 09:12, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:03:16AM +0200, tim.laurid...@gmail.com wrote: > >> - Running Windows application in a windows guest, runs very smooth, no >> delay in updating the GUI. > > You should try new versions. I've never had a problem with delays > updating the GUI, even in old versions. With SPICE support, access > over the network beats everything. Spice is cool, I just wish there was an agent/drivers for 64 bit Windows guests... Not that I have any real problem with a Windows guest and VNC graphics but it would be very nice to have working cut and paste. Tom -- Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu) http://compton.nu/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:03:16AM +0200, tim.laurid...@gmail.com wrote: >- Local shared folders. to share files from Fedora host to windows >client. libvirt can do this now, and I think so can virt-manager (not checked). http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsFilesystems I'm not sure if it's supported by Windows guests, which may be a deal-breaker. >- Save current state of guest, so I easy can switch clients with out >having to close the the client OS down. Snapshots are being added shortly. >- Running Windows application in a windows guest, runs very smooth, no >delay in updating the GUI. You should try new versions. I've never had a problem with delays updating the GUI, even in old versions. With SPICE support, access over the network beats everything. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones New in Fedora 11: Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows programs, test, and build Windows installers. Over 70 libraries supprt'd http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW http://www.annexia.org/fedora_mingw -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > > Virtualbox. > > > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this > area. > > > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > > for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. In the OLPC/Sugar world a lot of people use it on Windows/Mac because its non invasive, simple to use, free, universal on all platforms and they run Sugar on a Stick in a VM. > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? Problem is that in the education space Sugar is aiming at (K-6) Mac and Windows is the primary OS. Peter -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 06:37:19PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? VirtualBox has a nice GUI which compares well with old versions of virt-manager. However virt-manager has come a very long way since and I'd urge people to try up-to-date versions. New Fedora comes with it as standard, or you can do: # yum install virt-manager to install everything required (including libvirt and KVM bits). The other feature is USB passthrough. (KVM can do this, but IIRC it only works for USB 1.1 devices and it's not integrated into the UI). Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines. Supports shell scripting, bindings from many languages. http://libguestfs.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 04:30:07PM -0700, Dan Young wrote: > On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 18:37, Dave Jones wrote: > >> I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > >> Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > >> related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > > > > > 1) It works in windows > > 2) It works in mac os-x > > 3) Oracle has put a lot of money/effort in pushing it via searches > > > > and probably a little of: > > > > 4) It is not from Red Hat. > > 5) Free as in beer Windows guest driver binaries? > > Acquiring these is non-obvious for KVM/libvirt virtio blk/net Windows > guest drivers unless you're a RHEL customer. http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/ ? Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com Fedora now supports 80 OCaml packages (the OPEN alternative to F#) http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_red_hat_and_fedora -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 12:37 AM, Dave Jones wrote: > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? > > I use Virtualbox on a laptop with Fedora 14 as host OS, I use for building and test installation of Windows application and for Running some windows only application (Lotus Domino Designer and Administrator) I use it for the following reasons: - The easy snapshot features, when doing a lot of package testing on Windows, I have to rollback to an earlier snapshot. - Local shared folders. to share files from Fedora host to windows client. - Nice GUI, Very easy to setup and manage new clients. - Save current state of guest, so I easy can switch clients with out having to close the the client OS down. - Running Windows application in a windows guest, runs very smooth, no delay in updating the GUI. I have tried the same stuff on kvm about a year ago, it was the possibility to share local host folders with the guests and when running windows applications (ex. Lotus Domino Designer) there was a little delay before the GUI was updated. Tim -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
tor 2011-06-09 klockan 18:37 -0400 skrev Dave Jones: > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? Resurrect kqemu? No, not gonna happen. There are still usable CPUs out there, even 64-bit ones, that KVM won't run on. There's Xen, but that comes with its own set of gotchas. /abo -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Jun 9, 2011, at 6:37 PM, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: >> On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: >> >>> I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved >>> and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, >>> I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases >>> run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. >>> Virtualbox. >>> >>> Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this area. >> >> I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this >> area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel >> that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having >> this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common >> virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't >> think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers >> (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible >> for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? Beer-free and multi-platform, like others have said. I use VirtualBox myself on my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X. Note, however, that I have a Fedora 15 guest installed and running perfectly fine this very minute, so I dunno what the supposed problems are... (For Linux hosts, I do use kvm.) -- Jarod Wilson ja...@wilsonet.com -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 21:13, Matthew Miller wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 06:37:19PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: >> Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change >> in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? > > It works on Linux, OS X, Windows, and even Solaris. That means large > institutions can recommend one solution for everyone. My friends at former places have switched to it for those reasons.. mainly that they have one gui that works on their Windows/Mac/Ubuntu desktops and its the same with the servers they stand up. Ubiquity, thy name is marketshare. > -- > Matthew Miller > Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services > Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences > -- > devel mailing list > devel@lists.fedoraproject.org > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel > -- Stephen J Smoogen. "The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance." Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University. "Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle." -- Ian MacLaren -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 06:37:19PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? It works on Linux, OS X, Windows, and even Solaris. That means large institutions can recommend one solution for everyone. -- Matthew Miller Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Quoting "Dave Jones" : > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > > for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? > > Dave > I used VMware many years ago and somewhere along the line also dabbled around with Xen. And then I got work of Virtualbox. Which not only blew competition away regarding ease-of-use and graphical interface. Sure, in it's early beginnings it may not have been the most technically advanced option out there in the open-source jungle, but that was overlooked by its aforementioned ease-of-use overall. Over the years Virtualbox has come along in leaps and bounds, largely due to the work of Sun Microsystems developers. Oracle seems to be doing an ok job so far. But as a result, VB has become basically the primary option for most virtualization nerds who want a fast and simple virtualization package that just does the job with minimal mucking around. Also, for those that may not be aware, Virtualbox can be installed in just 2 commands in your Fedora system. Assuming you have wget installed. For 32bit: ~$ su wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.i686.rpm yum install VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.i686.rpm Or for 64bit: ~$ su wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm yum install VirtualBox-4.0-4.0.8_71778_fedora15-1.x86_64.rpm Cheers Chris Jones This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 18:37, Dave Jones wrote: >> I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. >> Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be >> related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > > 1) It works in windows > 2) It works in mac os-x > 3) Oracle has put a lot of money/effort in pushing it via searches > > and probably a little of: > > 4) It is not from Red Hat. 5) Free as in beer Windows guest driver binaries? Acquiring these is non-obvious for KVM/libvirt virtio blk/net Windows guest drivers unless you're a RHEL customer. Not arguing with the approach; merely relaying what I see from new adopters. -- Dan Young Multnomah ESD - Technology Services 503-257-1562 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
I use it because it has a nice GUI. I was an original user of vmware when it first came out, actually bought a license. I have been using VirtualBox since vmware went to the web interface gui, couldn't get it to work so I found VirtualBox, been using it ever since. I only use it for testing and running XP, not in any kind of production. Have looked briefly at KVM/QEMU and didn't wan to have to learn another new technology. On 06/09/2011 06:37 PM, Dave Jones wrote: On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > Virtualbox. > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this area. > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > for that. I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? Dave -- Stephen Clark *NetWolves* Sr. Software Engineer III Phone: 813-579-3200 Fax: 813-882-0209 Email: steve.cl...@netwolves.com http://www.netwolves.com -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 23:37, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > > Virtualbox. > > > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this > area. > > > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > > for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? I don't know about anyone else but i found in the days before processors had hardware virtualization support (i think i had an Athlon 64 x2 at the time) VirtualBox seemed to run most things i threw at it at quite a usable speed while all the other open source options seemed to work but the performance was on par with swimming through concrete. Things may have improved since but i only use virtual machines every now and again so i just stick to what's easy. -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't... -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 18:37, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > > Virtualbox. > > > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this > area. > > > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > > for that. > > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. 1) It works in windows 2) It works in mac os-x 3) Oracle has put a lot of money/effort in pushing it via searches and probably a little of: 4) It is not from Red Hat. > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? > > Dave > > -- > devel mailing list > devel@lists.fedoraproject.org > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel > -- Stephen J Smoogen. "The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance." Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University. "Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle." -- Ian MacLaren -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On 06/09/2011 04:37 PM, Dave Jones wrote: > I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. > Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be > related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. > > Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change > in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? I moved from qemu to VMWare to VirtualBox because it became the easiest to use. I wanted to try Xen at the time but the combination of closed graphics, dual screens and all that made it not useful for me. It supported usb passthru, and graphics accel. Recently I tried whatever comes with fedora and found it horrendously slower. I could have installed Fedora in a VirtualBox VM 3-4 times from scratch before that VM finished. I removed the packages and haven't tried for awhile. It also had a very active development team. Releases and updates were many and not far between so it felt 'alive', whereas VMWare didn't (though it could have changed). Those are probably not all the reasons I chose it back in the day, but now that I'm here I've continued to use it. The one trial with whatever Fedora uses was unsatisfactory so I haven't switched. Also I can't remember if the virtual system fedora provided could host windows?? Maybe I'm confusing Xen with whatever is in use now. Like I said I made the switch and haven't seen much reason to switch again. -- Nathanael d. Noblet t 403.875.4613 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:00:57PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > > > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > > Virtualbox. > > > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this area. > > I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this > area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel > that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having > this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common > virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't > think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers > (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible > for that. I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly. Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable. Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ? Dave -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 08:01:06PM +1000, Chris Jones wrote: > I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved > and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, > I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases > run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. > Virtualbox. > > Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this area. I don't think there are any developers working on this area, where "this area" is Virtualbox. We don't ship Virtualbox. We don't ship a kernel that has any knowledge of Virtualbox. There's a good argument for having this be part of the QA process and requiring that we boot in the common virtualisation environments as part of the release criteria, but I don't think we can realistically suggest that our virtualisation developers (who work on code that has nothing to do with Virtualbox) be responsible for that. -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: F15 / VirtualBox
Quoting "Mike McGrath" : > I've seen some reports of F15 not working in Virtualbox. There's a few > notes online about possible fixes. Is there some way we can better test > this in the future (I'm thinking about QA but that might not be the right > place). > > Smolt has virtualbox rated as pretty common: > > http://smolts.org/static/stats/stats.html > > Just seems like we're potentially missing a lot of potential users there. > It's preventing the default live CD from running. > > -Mike I agree. As virtualization technology becomes more and more involved and frequent on users systems, particularly with advanced Linux users, I think there needs to be a strong focus on ensuring that all releases run in virtualized environments without any major issues. ie. Virtualbox. Perhaps a dedicated team among the developers who specialize in this area. Regards Chris Jones This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
