Fedora 7 Xen Preview
Virtual Machine has been a hot topic for a long time, especially after VMWare acquied by EMC and IPO-ed in stock markets. There are several choices in the markets.
- For Mac users – Go check with Parallel or VMWare Fusion.
- For Windows users – Go check with Windows Virtual PC or VMWare (Player, Workstation and Server)
- For Me
– I am choosing go check with Fedora Xen.
Xen, as an important feature in Redhat Enterprise 5, is optional when you install Fedora 7. If you think your local machine is big enough. I mean, you have high performance CPU, larger memory and large capacity of hard drive. Then you can think about to install Xen. If you have already installed Fedora 7, you can add this good feature by:
yum install kernel-xen xen virt-manager
Additionally, Xen provides GUI for user to easily configure. The following are the steps and screen shots of installing Windows XP vitrual machine.
Step 1: Go menu “Applications” — “System Tools” — “Virtual Machine Manager”, you will see the dialog box prompt.
Step 2: Naming your virtual machine
Step 3: Choosing Virtualization Method
Step 4: Locating Installation Media. Here I used ISO file to import.
Step 5: Assigning Storage Space. Here I used one 20G file as virtual machine space.
Step 6: Connect to Host Network. Here is not as good as VMWare since I don’t know how virtual machine connect to my physical network interface. In VMWare, you can setup network either by bridge or by NAT. Now, I can only choose default.
Step 7: Allocate Memory Space and CPU. See, my memory is too small. But it works.
Step 8: Ready to Installation
Step 10: My Lovely Installation Screen for 15 Years
Step 11: Monitor Your Virtual Machine
Summary
Pros:
- Friendly graphic user interface, easy to use.
- Binding with Fedora distribution, easy to install.
Cons:
- Not as matured as VMWare
- Cannot assign more hard disk to virtual machine, unlike VMWare.
- Cannot configure network at the beginning, unlike VMWare.
However, I still like Xen since it is simple and easy to use.
