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VMware VS Xen : Flirt vs Commitment?

I call VMware a flirtation because it will run on an otherwise ordinary system (provided that I have enough kernel source around to compile its modules). Installing and using VMware is thus a reasonably casual thing, something I can do without particularly perturbing the system. I can even normally boot my system with VMware's kernel modules loaded, and only contaminate things if I actually need it this time around.

Xen's hypervisor approach requires a much bigger change in my system; I can't add Xen to a running system, I have to boot the Xen environment from the start. Which requires a special Xen-enabled kernel, which requires special patches that you have to integrate into your kernel, which gives me nervous flashbacks. Being able to run stock kernels is valuable for me, and with Xen I give that up, so setting things up for Xen means a fairly significant commitment.


I can understand from a developer's point of view. We flirt with everything that is there. But somewhere along the line, you have to make a decision. Honestly, I play and do serious work with VMware's offerings. Call it flirting if you will, actually I do both!

Second: I just don't have that kind of time to test all those offerings. There are enough of those to go for. Well obviously if you send me to an island in the pacific for six months then maybe I would have tested and played with them all.

To Conclude...(From my end that is) Flirting is also a sort of commitment. In fact the chance that you'll fall in love is pretty big. It happened to me ;-)

Read further... (But the guy has a point!)

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