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Re: [Xen-devel] Vertualization of Unmodified Operating Systems

To: Dave Feustel <dfeustel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Vertualization of Unmodified Operating Systems
From: "M.A. Williamson" <maw48@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: 16 Apr 2006 14:14:11 +0100
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AMD Pacifica and Intel's VT make possible the virtualization of unmodified operating systems. Is it still necessary to add code to the hypervisor to support specific operating systems, or can Xen, as written, support any arbitrary OS that successfully boots
on a PC? (I'm thinking of the BSDs here).

Shouldn't be necessary to add special support usually... However, if an OS makes use of particularly esoteric hardware features that other OSes do not use then it's possible those will not be emulated in Xen yet. In these cases, one would add the emulation to Xen and then that OS (and any others which used those features) would be able to run unmodified.

x86 is full of little "tricks", of the "whoa, people (can) do that?" variety ;-)

Cheers,
Mark

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