Hopefully just a general question:

My AMD Dual core died 2 days ago after many years of service. So last night I went and purchased a new motherboard, processor, and memory.

The motherboard/processor I picked up has an option in the BIOS to enable virtualization (sp?) support.

I have only dabbled with virtual machines in the past, but am now curious about setting up xen and maybe getting into it more.

With that being said, the processor that I purchased is an AMD FX 6100 HEXA Core (amazing deal on it with the motherboard), with the virtualization option being enabled in the BIOS, does this provide me with benefits for virtualization as opposed to a system that does not have this option?

Also, would there be any "special" settings in something like xen or virtualbox to understand this and make use of it, or does that even matter?

Thanks for any input.

This basically allows you to run x86_64 virtual machines. Without that option the virtual software can only run in 32-bit mode.

This talks a little bit about it http://www.vi-tips.com/2009/04/how-t...ios-on-hp.html

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Each generation of hardware seems to offer a bit more virtual machine support. I can't find the page that I wanted to link to but that that board and processor ought to do fine for most uses.

The newest hardware and maybe this choice can allow some very advanced options to the virtual machine. I wish I could find what I was looking for to tell you for all the latest hardware advances.

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>would there be any "special" settings in something like xen or virtualbox to understand this and make use of it, or does >that even matter?

I'd give Fedora 18 64 bit a go then run gnome-boxes (search for boxes). This is the latest in virtualisation technology rather than the older xen and Oracle's virtualbox. Apart from adding an SELINUX rule (all details are given) the setup is very simplified and works straight out of the box.

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Enabling hardware virtualization will not only allow 64 bit VMs, it will also significantly speed up any virtual machine that executes x86/x86_64 code.
All modern virtualization solutions will use it by default, if available, you don't have to specify extra options or similar.

Sidenote: Although AMD markets these CPUs as hexa-core be aware that that the AMD FX6xxx are not real hexacores, they are rather triple-cores with an advanced SMT design.

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Thank you for the advice. Opensuse does report it as a 6 core processor, not saying that it "truly" is, just that that is how the os is reporting it. In either case, as previously stated, processor and motherboard (package deal), cost me $60. Being as my other one died, I can't complain.

brak44,

Been a long time since I tried Fedora, in fact I think it was still Red Hat, for now I will stick with opensuse, I have become very comfortable with it. Maybe I will try it on a virtual machine to take it for a test run. One question though, gnome-boxes, Fedora/Gnome only? I ask as I use Kde rather than gnome.

No worries, I appreciate the response and effort.