Which Linux as a VM host?

[portseven]

i would say anything that uses KVM as a hypervisor, is the up and coming kid on the block.

red hat, cent-os, ubunutu

any of those, use KVM

[Ardesco]

Linux Server - Debian
Linux Desktop - Ubuntu/Mint

HTH

[Sysman]

Been there too. I'm sure I had this going at one stage, but my final setup was with mirrored disks and whilst it all worked first time with Windows 7, I just couldn't get the boot loader for Ubuntu to work no matter what. And posting on the Ubuntu forums got zero replies, and nobody here seemed to have a clue either. But I found I liked running W7 so much that I gave up on Linux, and still have a 100GB partition with an unusable Ubuntu on it I should probably put to some other use.

I can happily report progress here, at least with Linux Mint and Windows 7 dual boot. Right at the end of the Mint question and answer session before the installation proper starts, there's a little button which you can press which allows you to specify where the boot block goes. I put it on /dev/sda and on the next boot I got a Grub boot for Mint and 2 versions of Windows 7 (the second one is in fact Windows Server). Picking Windows puts me in the BCDEDIT boot menu from where I can get to Windows 7. It did need a repair (straightforward let it do its stuff and reboot), and the Windows Server boot is still complaining (need to do some manual repair work to get it going).

Since my aim is to lose my dependency on Windows Server, I should be happy at this point, but I am still irritated at how hard it seems to be and how little relevant advice is out there.

P.S. In an earlier venture, Fedora 24 found Linux Mint, declared it was too out of date to upgrade and wanted to stomp on it. Ooh! Linux internecine wars?

[VectraMan]

Ouch. Very early on with VB I discovered that the config files on Windows are linefeed terminated, so I was hoping they'd be compatible. Still, there's that 400+ page manual to read

They have different options for things like sound and network IIRC. A bit of fiddling and cut and paste and I managed to get it going, but it might be easier to just create new VMs. You can use the same VHDs, so it's not a big problem.

Yesterday's problem was actually getting Linux (Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Fedora 14 tried so far) dual booting with Windows.

Been there too. I'm sure I had this going at one stage, but my final setup was with mirrored disks and whilst it all worked first time with Windows 7, I just couldn't get the boot loader for Ubuntu to work no matter what. And posting on the Ubuntu forums got zero replies, and nobody here seemed to have a clue either. But I found I liked running W7 so much that I gave up on Linux, and still have a 100GB partition with an unusable Ubuntu on it I should probably put to some other use.

[Sysman]

I use VirtualBox running on Windows 7 x64 all the time, but I also had the machine dual booting into Ubuntu and after some faffing had all the same VMs running in VirtualBox in that. Unfortunately VB Windows and VB Linux have incompatible config files :suicide:.

Ouch. Very early on with VB I discovered that the config files on Windows are linefeed terminated, so I was hoping they'd be compatible. Still, there's that 400+ page manual to read

I tried VB on Fedora 14 over the weekend but couldn't get GuestAdditions installed.

Yesterday's problem was actually getting Linux (Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Fedora 14 tried so far) dual booting with Windows. There's plenty of (often dated) advice out there about doing it on a single disk, but I was trying to spread OS's across disks and much gnashing of teeth ensued. I ended up doing a fresh install of Windows Server to get a bootable system, and set off a restore of the lot before going home.

I got as far as downloading VMware, but haven't had chance to install it yet. I'll let you know how I get on.

My dual boot problem probably merits a thread of its own...

[VectraMan]

edit: and what kinds of VM OSes do you need to run? windown, linux, etc?

Why does that matter?

I use VirtualBox running on Windows 7 x64 all the time, but I also had the machine dual booting into Ubuntu and after some faffing had all the same VMs running in VirtualBox in that. Unfortunately VB Windows and VB Linux have incompatible config files .

[TheFaQQer]

Linux Mint, running VMWare.

[doodab]

Another hypervisor option VMWare server (used to be called GSX I think) which is free now.

Ubuntu is a good choice if you want a linux desktop. I personally like ubuntu server (cut down and sans gui) as a web / application server because it makes a smallish VM that fits nicely on my laptop as a "dev box". Oracle Enterprise Linux is binary compatible with Redhat which is an advantage for running commercial software such as oracle DB without the excess faffing and library jiggling that getting something running on an unsupported distro sometimes involves.

[xchaotic]

If you want to stick with Virtualbox, this rules out VMWare ESX/i which I mentioned in the other thread.
If you're not going to be doing much in the host OS, just choose the distro that you're familiar with, Ubuntu sounds a decent choice.
Just ensure that you go with the 64bit variant so that you can use loads of RAM which VM are very happy with.

[ee61re]

Depending on what hardware you are running it on, could you use bare metal Hyper-V server - its free, as I understand it - you just have to license the VMs.

Alternatively, Citrix XenServer is ok - another bare metal platform.

Failing that, Ubtuntu server with Vmware Server on top.

[Sysman]

I have an AMD64 box which I have so far been using as a VM playground and would rather use that than a remote solution. I've been using VirtualBox, but also XAMPP and Cygwin. It has been mainly for training and evaluation but I'd prefer to turn it into something more like "production" for office use.

I do want to explore the Linuxy side of things, webserver, databases etc., and also have a box I can do the normal webby things / listen to music, and stash documentation.

[CheeseSlice]

Does it need to be an interactive host OS? or are you happy to remotely connect to the VM host?

edit: and what kinds of VM OSes do you need to run? windown, linux, etc?

[Sysman]

I currently have VirtualBox installed on an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2008, and am looking for alternatives for when the evaluation period expires.

What Linux would you recommend as a VM host?