New virtualizer for x86
Everyone and their brother today was talking about the new virtualizer named Xen. It was posted to slashdot, and was discussed on three different OS mailing lists I’m on.
It’s certainly an interesting idea. Not really that different than the new Plex86 project, except Xen is it’s own modified Linux kernel, while Plex86 runs on top of an existing Linux install. Really, when reading the Xen docs, the first virtual machine takes on the role of the hosting Linux for Plex86, in that it can output to the video card, can run the commands setting up and/or modifying other VMs, and so on. It’ll be interesting to see if Plex86 can get to be as fast as Xen.
One interesting thing about Xen is that they’re porting Windows XP to it. If Microsoft can be convinced to release a patch to alow XP to run on Xen, that would be awesome, because this is supposed to be even faster and better than VMware. I’d have to get into it then.
Maybe we can get a group together to port Syllable to it. It’ll need the capability to allow mutliple OSs to output graphics, tho, before it’ll be very useful for Syllable or Windows.
