Again.. the problem with this all is CPU cycles, anytime you put another layer in you slow things down. And again, having an emulation layer which dumbs thins down to a level which an older OS can understand (without updated drivers) is just the same thing as going out to a store and buying an older device. There will be no benefit from it. I can see advantages in certain points if done right:The Host OS installs printing support and a virtualizaed network, you print through the guest OS using a standard printer interface. (this is pointless is we have cups)
The Host OS connects to the physical networking device and allows you to connect through a virtualized driver. (this is actually GOOD =) however it kills the ability to truely use the guest as a server, since the overhead is unacceptable under such conditions).
The Host OS controls the HD's, and virtualizes hardware access so that an older guest OS can make use of such hardware. However, there is a likely hood of corruption under heavy use. If the file system driver doesn't have a hardware level hook there is a chance (pretty good one with certain journalling file systems.. ::cough:
that things can go quite wrong in a quite indetectable fashion.
I'm not going to even get into graphics hardware, due to the many layers involved even with native drivers you are just going to stack up overhead on the graphics hardware and the video hardware.
Hey.. I never claim that virtualization doesn't have it's uses. But again.. the real world useage is hard to determine, along with the fact that many people don't want to pay the price of entry. Could virtualization help people who already own eCS or similar operating system and wish to keep using it on newer hardware. Yes.
Will it help a company like SSI stay in buisness and gain NEW customers. Unlikely.
ecsguy (02 Feb, 2007 09:23):
abwillis (01 Feb, 2007 04:21):
There is one way I can think of to make VM workable as a primary platform (even if not desirable). Take something like freebsd and set it up to only bring up VM. Then you could launch OS/2, maybe windows, and even freebsd or linux within that structure. It would be done in such a way that there is no base OS that would be usable as such... just the guests, similar to VM on the mainframes.
Ding, Ding, Ding. We hava a winner!
Another example is "microcode". It is a software layer underneath the OS (between OS and hardware). It insulated the OS from much of the actual hardware such that you could change hardware architecure and not have to recode the OS.
PCs just repeat mainframe designs 20 years late (but at an affordable price).
VMed eComStation
Make it so.
QEMU - http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
KbVM - http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki
VirtualBox - http://www.virtualbox.org/[/quote]