Xen and Windows on new VT CPUs? + Parallels experiences

[albanard]

Has anyone gotten Xen and windows running with the new intel Virtualisation CPUs (e.g. dual cores)? Any Issues?

I still don't quite get how XEN works, but if the kernel of the host OS (lets say its gentoo) supports a piece of hardware (lets say a graphics card) then does that support get extended through to a guest OS (lets say windows)?

[cybermonkey]

[albanard]

[cybermonkey]

[GNUtoo]

some commercial virtualisation software already do this under macosX

by the way i have never understood doom0,doomu and all theses things

is the xen kenrel(host) just a linux kernel with a module?

[albanard]

I know, I'm about to give parallels a try because they have a free trial. They've even created an ebuild for gentoo http://www.parallels.com/en/download/

Don't know about the Xen kernel - module thing,

[cybermonkey]

[albanard]

Well, I've sucessfully installed parallels on gentoo and I have to say that I'm quite impressed. I've got what would be considered old by todays standards, a 1.6Ghz celeron laptop and it runs windows, office, explorer quite smoothly. It is noticibly slower than if I run windows directly off its own install, but not as slow as I've experienced with other VMs and certainly a very cofortable speed. I'd say its about 25% slower. I dare say that for newer machines the speed difference would be negligible and hard to notice for basic apps. I've also installed skype but my USB isn't working at the moment so I can't test the camera. Its seems to support usb so I'd be very happy if it passes that support straight through to the OS (i.e. if I could just install windows drivers for the camera), but I'll have to wait and see. As has been previously mentioned it can't be used to play games with because of the graphics card, but it definitely seems to cope well with other normal desktop apps. I'd still like to try XEN when I get a machine which supports CPU virtualisation, but its good to know that if XEN doesn't work for me then I can always fall back on parallels.

btw some install notes..
- What you download is a trial version, it lasts for 15 days.
- You need the 2.6 kernel to run it (won't work with 2.4) at least it didn't for me and I think this is safe to assume.

1 You can download the ebuild from the parallels site.
2 Then create an overlay directory if you haven't already got one and add the appopriate entry to make.conf
3. Put your ebuild in the overlay directory e.g. /usr/local/portage/app-emulation (i.e. not your normal /usr/portage directory)
4. emerge parallels-workstation then run parallels-config

Thats pretty much it, then you run parallels and it will guide you through installing another OS.

Some more notes:

Windows XP stalled for me during the install. I don't know if this was because I was switching back and forth between parallels and gentoo but it just sat there for 30 mins with no CPU/hardisk activity so I shut it down. However when I tried starting it again the install picked up from where it left off so that worked in the end.

The other bug I had was that switching between fullscreen and windowed view caused parallels to crash. This may have been because I was changing screen resolutions in windows however. I simply killed paralells and then it started up OK again.

I really found these issues to be minor and I'm very pleased overall with this app.

[Headrush]

This thread, http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=66383 , seems to indicate 3D acceleration with nvidia driver is possible and coming.

[GNUtoo]

[albanard]

[albanard]

Updating my experiences with parallels..

I've gotten usb working now in gentoo so I could test the webcam. I have a logitec communicate webcam which required logitec drivers to be installed. This meant that just plugging it in didn't make it useable. I tried installing the logitec drivers in the windows guest but during installation it couldn't detect my webcam, even though the webcam is listed under usb devices in the hardware configuration thingy. So I'm not sure if this is a problem with logitec or a general problem. I plugged in a USB memory stick and it worked as per normal (just popped up as an extra drive in windows).

My next mission is to try to install the windows that came with my laptop to see if it lets me install it (you know how those OEM versions that come with laptops won't let you install on other machines). So hopefully it will still recognise that its the same machine.


EDIT: Well that was quick. Nope, tells me I'm installing on the wrong computer, so expect to fork out for a second copy of windows if you've bought a laptop preconfigured with windows. Either that or I suppose you could install gentoo as a guest on windows, but that kind of sucks and I'd never trust windows to take care of gentoo for me. As far as I'm concerned I want windows in its own little box. So this is a bit disappointing. Not sure if I'd trust mac to host gentoo for me because I don't have much (any) eperience with it, but from what I've read it sounds like a safer option (ie less viruses etc). Don't like their attitude towards privacy though.

[gentoowho]

what version of parallels are you currently using? The RC1?

[gentoowho]

well, if you haven't downloaded the latest version yet, you can get it at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/

enjoy.

[gentoowho]

looks likes the RC 2 is out now actually.

[bobobo]

Not Xen, but there is semi-working directx support in vmware (version >=5). I managed to play a few old 3d games. I don't know how it's done though, maybe the calls to the graphic device get translated by vmware into opengl instructions ?

[cybermonkey]

[bobobo]

I ran the severance demo, however this one is very buggy, the menus lag a lot, and the game only runs for a few seconds before crashing. However, Severance has a great 3d engine, and it renders very well and runs smoothly, until it crashes that is.

More interestingly, total annihilation is fully working. Better than in wine actually, since wine has some (very) minor sound issues. It is not integrated to the desktop of course, but this is actually an advantage since games are usually run in fullscreen, and it prevents any weird crashes that might happen in wine due to interference between the game and the desktop.
http://marine.edu.ups-tlse.fr/~l3inf168/ta-vmware.png

Accelerated 3d is off by default. If you want to try it out, you need to follow these instructions :
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_vidsound_d3d_enabling_vm.html

I didnt try many games yet, but i assume any game using the currently supported features should work, list here :
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_vidsound_d3d_limitations.html

[gentoowho]

but do your guys have any luck playing new games in vmware?

[bobobo]

This is getting interesting :3 Vampire - the masquerade works in vmware. The videos are black though and alt - tab crashes. This game does not run in wine.
http://marine.edu.ups-tlse.fr/~l3inf168/masquerade.png
I'm starting to have really high expectations for virtualization and para virtualization in the close future.

gentoowho >> most new games won't work, as these rely on directx 9.

[gentoowho]

how long do you think it will be before companies can virtualize graphic cards so you can play 3D heavy games in guest OSes? I mean, how close are they and what would they have to do?

[mc717990]

Ok, to clarify:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/readmes/user/user.html#SECTION04300000000000000000

Yes, you supposedly CAN boot windows using Xen. however, the gentoo builds of xen don't generate a bunch of the files - specifically:
/usr/lib/xen/boot/vmxloader

SO, I don't see how it can do so. I'm trying to find a way to find this file. NOW, I did the thing on xen where I checked out the repository using the "hg clone ..." command, and I see a vmxloader in ".hg/data/tools/firmware/vmxassist" but it's a binary file and don't see anything else. *sigh* And of course, the stupid xen site wants you to register before they'll give you a normal download link. URGH.

Been fighting with this the last few hours, trying to find more information. The tarballs you can download don't have anything in them with regards to this.

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

[GNUtoo]

[mc717990]

Actually, figured it out. The newer releases of Xen have merged the loader into the hvm loader system. THat is what ya need to use to get Windows to boot in a guest mode type system. However, also discovered stupid dell put the more expensive, slower, less featureful processors in my new desktop, which means no VT extensions for me SO, I can't do this. You can "cat /proc/cpuinfo" to see if the processors support the VT extensions. Then, look at one of the example config files for the hvmloader system, and use that to load windows.

[GNUtoo]