[Xen-users] Re: VMWare and xen comparison

[Black Dew <bdew@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Do you mean setting up a new system as a Dom0, or adding new DomUs? The 
> former absolutely requires rebooting if not running the hypervisor and 
> an appropriate kernel already (this being a deep enough design 
> requirement that despite not being in any way part of the dev team I'm 
> on quite safe ground saying it won't change, at least until major OS 
> distributions come with Xen out-of-the-box). If you're discussing adding 
> new DomUs, on the other hand, this absolutely should not require 
> rebooting, and if you could be a little more specific about what you're 
> doing that *does* require you to reboot, perhaps we could help you find 
> a different procedure. (What's this "install from CD" bit, for instance? 
> What exactly are you installing? Why are you booting off a CD to do it?)
I think he refers to installing a brand new OS that will run in a domU 
by rebooting, installing it off a cd then going back to the old (dom0) 
os and using the newly-installed OS as a domU.
The emulation level xen uses is generaly unable to handle the process of 
installing an OS from a generic installation CD. One of the main 
problems would be that the kernel on the install CD is meant to run on a 
rial system, it'll not function in a domU. Replacing the kernel is 
possible but my guess is that 90% of instalers would barf if ran on a 
different kernel inside a domU.
I am personaly using debian, and for me this is a nonproblem, installing 
a new copy of the os is as simple as:
mke3fs /dev/blah
mount /dev/blah /mnt
debootstrap sarge /mnt
umount /mnt

But most of the linux distros don't provide such capability.

--
Best regards, Black Dew.
==============================
~ bdew@xxxxxxxxxxx ~ ICQ:2666606 ~ 2:400/567 ~

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