Re: [Xen-users] Using Xen to virtualize a single desktop

[mario piccinelli <mario.piccinelli@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the quick and complete answer.. I think that the best way to achieve my goals is to stick to a minimal X installation on Dom0 and a SDL (or VNC) viewer.. I need to make it as hardware-independent as possible, so this seems the most sane implementation..

One more question: according to your experience, which is the best (simplest) distro for Dom0? And how could I achieve a really minimal installation of Dom0 with X capabilities? Could you point me to some sort of howto, guide or something else? (haven't been able to find anything by myself, and I'm not an experienced Linux user, at least for what concerns X and graphics :-) ).

And one more (again!) question (hoping I'm not abusing your kindness): could you suggest me a good SDL (or VNC) viewer to run on Dom0? I need something which could run full screen, be started at Dom0 startup and possibly be locked (user shouldn't be allowed to quit DomU and see Dom0)..

Thanks in advance!

piccimario

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:56 AM, mario piccinelli
<mario.piccinelli@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello everybody

I'm approaching Xen for the first time, and I'm looking forward to see if it can solve a problem I'm working on.. To make it simple, I'm trying to build a single machine whose user is presented with a graphical Linux installation, but the user system has in fact to be a virtual machine, with the hypervisor running on the same hardware.

So I need:

- a Xen hypervisor with a Domain0 text-only (no X running, it must be as lightweight as possible)..

- a DomainU with a graphical environment, full screen, possibly starting at boot...

The problem which I couldn't find a solution for in the knowledge base is: can I use SDL or something to show on the screen the X desktop of domain U, without using any graphical software on the Domain 0 (which should be text only and possibly hidden from the user)? Otherwise, I read something about hiding the graphical device from Domain0 and giving it to DomainU.. but again I couldn't find any help or howto...

If you really can't have any X software running in dom0 at all, you
need to pass the graphics card to a domU at boot.

This is the idea:
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenVGAPassthrough


The VGA passthrough is fairly complicated and not yet for the average
user. Do expect to work through issues and have the right hardware
support. On the other hand, if you are willing to have a minimal X
environment in dom0, then you can (more easily) replace the X session
with any graphical program, such as an SDL view of a Xen guest, for
example.

Could someone please give me some help or point me to a place where I could find anything else?

Thanks everybody in advance!

PicciMario

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