RE: [Xen-users] Duo Laptop

["Petersson, Mats" <Mats.Petersson@xxxxxxx>]

 

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From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of William Man
Sent: 22 August 2006 14:00
To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Duo Laptop

Continuing my search, I found the chip that is in my laptop Due Core T2500, and according to the Intel website it does have the Intel Virtualization Technology (VT).

At least it looks promising.  But before I go and try and install xen, could someone help me on some facts:

1) Will I need to re-install xp? Or can I install Xen on another partition and just boot up the normal xp partition? 

You will need to install Linux on a partition, which will also contain Xen.  You MAY be able to boot the exisitng Windows installation. My recommendation would be to try first on a separate installation of XP, just to make sure you've got it working ok there first, then try to use your main one - just in case.

2) Is there much of a performance issue if I am only using XP and dom0? 

Depends on what you're trying to do.  If you have a setup that does a lot of hardware accesses, it may be quite noticably slower. Browsing the web or doing e-mail, you shouldn't notice.

3) Will there be any hardware issues, eg. use of directx to play latest games, wired/wireless network connection? 

You should be able to use your network via Dom0, but your Windows will only see a emulated network card, which will not be directly relating to either of your wired or wireless interfaces, but rather go via the device model to the driver domain (see below on the subject of hardware support).

Your graphics will be limited to SVGA emulation, as that's what the device model supplies. You can also use remote desktop to connect to Windows, but you'll absolutely not be able to play any high demanding games in Windows running on Xen - not until IOMMU is part of your hardware, or someone comes up with a set of drivers that work with this sort of setup - the latter is not a trivial task by any measure... There is support in Direct3D to support less capable graphics solutions, but it's very slow (0-5 FPS for relatively simple models, vs. 100s of FPS on capable hardware).

4) Is the process reversible? 

With some suitable care, you can certainly set things up so you can go back again.  But I wouldn't want to risk it...

5) How much hardware support is in xen? 

Really little.  The idea behind Xen is to support hardware via a Device model and via a Driver domain (which is normally Dom0). This means that any hardware supported by standard Linux (minus a few obscure bits) is supported in Xen, since it uses (slightly modified) Linux drivers inside Dom0.

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Mats

 

Thanks for any advice in advanced.

William

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