Just wanted to give an update that the mods and I are currently discussing this issue. Thanks for the feedback, if you have anything to add to the discussion don't hesitate.

--jeremy

Just as dual-boot Q's get answered here, even if the problem is actually w/ "that other OS's" boot loader; so there should be a VM forum, and host OS Q's should be allowed there.

We are here to encourage & help w/ the use of Linux. We shouldn't turn away Q's about a non-Linux host OS that is causing problems for a Linux guest, any more than we would turn away folks who dual boot because they can't, or can't yet, wipe their drives & install a pure Free Software system.

Until the advent of no-cost VM software for M$ machines, currently VMserver, dual-boot was the try out/migration path of choice for a great many new users. Now we have another & potentially easier path for those new users. We should support it fully.

How many of us have the luxury of not owning, let alone not dealing w/, computers that are 100% Free? Even I, who have been "Winders-free (tm:))" for almost 2 years, still have to administer my girl friend's W2k box. Which, BTW, has VMserver on it. I figure by the time M$ stops supporting W2k she'll be ready for Linux. (She better be, or she'll be looking for a new admin. ;-) )

The conventional viewpoint that an OS has to run on bare metal is going the way of the 3.5” floppy. In 5 years, give or take, pretty much everyone will be running in a virtual environment. If it wasn't so, Intel and Microsoft would not be turning their focus to bringing out products for virtual machines. They are and we should. Besides VMware Server (proprietary but free for now), VirtualBox (free proprietary and open source versions), etc. are killer applications for Linux—they let you run those programs that only run on Windows without having to reboot and leave Linux to get there. What that means is that a lot of Linux fans will be installing, configuring, and running VMs—and asking questions along the way.

Excellent perspective.

And let's not forget the new Linux kernal extends the VM capabilities of Linux.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=549584

Cheers
Bill

I'd like to see a VM forum. I've just spent the better part of the past few days trying them out.

I searched everywhere (mostly here) for decent advise, and it's sorely lacking.

Booting the xen kernel in FC6 caused my system to go at hyperspeed, the clock gained 35 minutes for every 5 minutes of uptime, and nowhere could I find what caused it. Needless to say, I'm not using xen.

I stumbled upon VirtualBox, and it installed, and runs, flawlessly. Thus far, in less than 3 hours, I've installed DSL, PuppyOS, WinXP, Vista, Ubuntu....

cheers,

Ok this is funny, everyone is debating what a virtual machine is or what to even do about virtual machines.... fine we all have our view points. I just wanted to point out to the ADMIN and users of LinuxQuestions.org that this might be a good forum to have since computers are leaning more towards a virtual world. Now I don't know much about virtual machines YET and most of the other people out there probably don't either. So rather than going back and forth at each other lets focuss on one forum with sub forums hardware virtual and software virtual or whatever ADMIN does. Like I said I don't know much about it and I am only using VMware Server and I think there are other people out there who would like to know about it and how to set it up. I have found this debate interesting because I didn't know that there were as many other VM providers out there hardware/software - that is why I wanted a forum regarind Virtualization!!!!!!

Lets just get the forum up and share knowledge..... if ADMIN likes the idea. Thanks!

Cheers,

well i'd say that it currently "seems likely", i've been championing the idea away from the public forums, but nothing set in stone yet. and Jeremy's name is Jeremy. maybe ADMIN is his middle name. i think it's actually Sanchez or something though...

ADMIN = Windows
root = *nix