From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1RSx0G-0005Af-FA for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:31:40 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9DB6021C0E9; Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:31:21 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-fx0-f53.google.com (mail-fx0-f53.google.com [209.85.161.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C449321C0B8 for ; Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:29:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: by faan15 with SMTP id n15so1058340faa.40 for ; Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:29:29 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:organization :x-mailer:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=zkwJuNXeWeLDWG8GEQmdNyiaC9EtwMAkBSGwub/Dlyk=; b=DQ8lGU2wyojhjtaID4Eu6Y+p43O64bqsnSdqtb0E3gg/xczB7b4cyKkah9mb2IC+WP CjYdJFRiZR5bRrPgX/c7bNC7/BR5SERp3gLuNfJ3kTh88VU+PFgNu1K7+EDZ7prZo7T8 SLTHsHr9WVd8nX1kUXuPJtmh4VB/WgCWw25AQ= Received: by 10.180.77.42 with SMTP id p10mr20659871wiw.66.1321993769485; Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:29:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from rohan.example.com ([196.215.144.97]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id z5sm7207221wix.5.2011.11.22.12.29.26 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:29:27 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:29:23 +0200 From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] A helping hand with virtual machines, please. Message-ID: <20111122222923.7c1a6901@rohan.example.com> In-Reply-To: References: <20111122192021.GA3364@acm.acm> Organization: Internet Solutions X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.8 (GTK+ 2.24.4; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 617c4d9f-bd18-4b65-aabe-09fb0f28c28d X-Archives-Hash: af3a758f6517dac1a562e9695f9cd283 On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:43:10 -0500 Michael Mol wrote: > On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > Hi, Gentoo. > > > > A friend of mine recently suggested I should install and play with > > virtual machines on my Gentoo. > > > > I've scanned /usr/portage for likely looking packages, particularly > > in directory "virtual", yet found nothing likely looking. > > > > Would somebody please give me some hints which packages I should be > > looking at, and perhaps any use flags I might need. > > I've heard you should stay away from virtualbox, due to instability > from their kernel modules. I use virtualbox and it's the one I recommend. The kernel modules are no better and no worse than any other out-of-tree modules. Yes, they break sometimes. So does VMWare. So did ath network cards long ago - that's how life works. Here it runs on stable with zero issues about kernel versions for 6 months+, it's probably reasonable to assume that bleeding edge kernels would of course not build occasionally. But does one really want to run VMs on the latest bleeding edge kernel? I don't. What I like about VBox is that you get all the useful bits in the open-source version. With VMWare you get player for free but need paying version to get more functionality. It's been a long time since I payed with Xen so I can't really comment on that product. qemu-kvm would appeal to the hard-core geek, something that Alan Mac is at least in part > > Apart from that, make sure your kernel has kvm support enabled. > > From there, you can either try playing with Xen (I've got my Gentoo > desktop as my dom0), libvirt, qemu-kvm or vmware-workstation. I > haven't tried any of the latter three on Gentoo, and I haven't tried > vmware on Linux at *all*. > > I can't make a good recommendation for which would suit you best. > Perhaps someone else could make a suggestion or two. > -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com