Re: [Xen-users] Getting frustrated with Xen

[Julian Davison <julian-xen_users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jonathan Dill wrote:
> Jerry Amundson wrote:
> > I'm back after being unsubscribed after a month or so, and I have to
> > say I'm already frustrated by a continuing theme (or themes). Xen is
> > not a "package", per se, it is more of an *operating* *system*, and
> > installing from source is not something to go into lightly. Did you
> > really need to?
> It seems like there are some unrealistic expectations.  I have been 
> doing Linux since the 45-floppy disk days, and I wouldn't try to install 
> Xen from source unless I really had to for some reason.
While I'd agree that building things from source is seldom the
best first option, and I'm no linux guru by any stretch of the
imagination, my first experience with Xen involved building
3.0.1 from source. With the exception of having trouble building
for a non pae amd server on a pae dual-xeon box, it was plain
sailing.

> Also it has 
> been my impression Xen 3.0 is intended as beta-quality software and not 
> pretending to be anything different, but for some reason, some people 
> seem to have a very different impression and expectations to go along 
> with it.
That's because of the huge success you can have with it :)
There are lots of things that Xen either doesn't do, or does
badly, but they're being fixed at a good rate, and for a large
number of situations it's actually very good.
Of course, ultimately, it needs people to do odd things with it
to iron out all the quirks...

> I think it is purely the nature of the development cycle and where Xen 
> 3.0 is at in its evolution and not some kind of deficiency or flaw, 
> right now it's just not something to get into if you don't have a high 
> tolerance for frustration.
Again I feel I should comment that I've had very little frustration
with it.
With the HowTo's around (Google is your friend) and these lists
I've even had it running on a dual-xeon with VT and Win2k3 server
installed, all within 24 hours of the box arriving.
It's not perfect, but it *can* work brilliantly.

> > gotten to this point. For example, an error early on (not currently in
> > front of me :-) about missing file during boot could be a fairly
> > common problem referencing xen files with "/boot" in grub.conf - do
> > other previous entries have it? No - grub these days typically
> > references the /boot partition directly, so the context is
> > /filename....
> I posted a message that pointed that out, but no one replied, so I don't 
> know if anybody noticed.  I barely have time to read the mailing list.  
> If someone has a bad attitude, I am more likely to just skip it.
Maybe everyone just silently agreed. Or didn't read it, I find
time short for the lists in general :)


--
Julian Davison
Note: 1) This may have come from an address @cbhs.school.nz
         but isn't necessarily the (or even an) official view
         of Christchurch Boys' High School
      2) While replying to this address may get into my mailbox
         it will almost certainly be filtered into a mailing list
         folder. To actually reach actual me, strip off the bit
         after the '-' in the name.

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