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Win4Lin Announces Support For Running Windows On Xen

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Thrilling, at first. Then I found out how "easy" it is to install the stuff. Something every administrator will love to do in order to support consolidation in his datacenter. Don’t you think?
Hypervisor technology and OS awareness of virtualization in general is definitively the way to go! But if you have to follow these four easy steps to run a Windows app on Linux on a Hypervisor:

Compile your Linux kernel with support for Xen [Linux specific distribution issues can be found here]
Create an .iso file [8 GB recommended size]
Create a new partition on a hard drive and copy the loopback file system to that partition.
Create the Xen config file point the domU at the new disk partition.

Come on, get serious. This is certainly not "…the beginning of a robust ecosystem evolving around the Xen technology." This is what Moshe Bar, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, XenSource may see and wants us to believe. There are way more serious projects revolving around Xen and virtualization. For me Windows-apps-on-Linux-via-Win4Lin-on-Xen looks more like trying to push a square peg through a round hole.

Nice try, for now I suggest we follow existing proven consolidation scenarios on our preferred OS platform, enabled by 64-bit support and wait a bit. And if you want to move from Windows to Linux, there must be an easier way. From **nix to Windows I know for sure there are many and easier ways with products like Virtual Server, SFU or the competitive products from VMWare and others.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2005
    Well....

    As a server administrator I don't see the few taks as a problem, but I'm wondering why you and Microsoft don't support Xen virtualization. It would be much more convenient if we were able to run Windows ontop of Red Hat Linux or SUSE.
  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2005
    Claus,
    Microsoft will introduce its own Hypervisor in the future. One of the main reasons being that the Hypervisor, the "OS for OS'ses", is the most critical part of a virtual scenario. This piece has to be 100% stable and secure. I personally believe we (everyone who cares) should strive for one Hypervisor or at least one common implementation and operation model.
  • Anonymous
    August 16, 2005
    And who will do the better hypervisor? 20 or more major enterprise software vendors collaborating on Xen, or MSFT working in a deep dark corner, pretending not to look at the Xen source code?