VMware as the Base
Posted on February 17, 2008
12 Comments
I have this quasi-goofy idea that I’ve been mulling over all weekend. See, I’m just about out of hardware so things will be getting awkward since I like to work with many different OS’s for varying purposes. If I installed all the stuff I look at in my main desktop it wouldn’t last all that long and would probably need to be re-paved monthly! That’s no fun.
So here’s the idea: Reload my main home desktop with a lightweight OS — probably Windows 2000 so that I can continue to (easily) also use this machine for file and print sharing with the other home boxes.
Install VMware Server (free) into that clean”base” OS. Nothing else. Keep it lean, trim and svelte.
Next, I’d build up all my various and assorted OS’s as guest systems in VMware. For example, I could have my “productivity” XP installation, my web hacking Win 2000 and Xubuntu installations, testing installations and whatever else strikes my fancy. Running guests in full-screen mode is easy to do so it would be pretty unobtrusive.
Going on vacation or leaving town? I always (always!) have my work laptop with me, so I could just copy my assorted VM clients to my 2.5″ big USB2 drive and run ‘em from that laptop if the need arises (it already has VMware Player on it). Build a new home machine? Same deal, no need to reload all my guest OSs.
Now then, clearly the main downfall is that when I power up the machine I’d likely have to wait for not one but two OS’s to load. Of course, Win2k will load up quite quickly… which helps negate that. But still, it’s a valid concern.
Gaming would also be an issue. Maybe my base OS should be XP for just that reason? There’s no DirectX in VMware clients. Of course, I’m not doing any gaming at the moment, so maybe I’m just borrowing trouble.
What other pros or cons would there be? So far I’m still of the mind that this would be a good idea.
Tags: os, virtualization, vmware, VMware-Server
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12 Responses to “VMware as the Base”
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I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work. Some caveat’s to remember are that you’ll need as much ram as you can stuff into it, and the fastest HD you can get in it…5400rpm won’t cut it, you’ll need a 7200rpm if you want to actually USE it and not grow to hate how slow it is.
As for 2 OS’s to boot…thats what hibernate is for. You probably won’t want to suspend a VM using the VMWare suspend since VMWare waking up can take upwards of a couple minutes, its noticeably slower to wake than just opening the lid of your laptop and letting it come out of hibernate, but it will still take a minute or 2. Boot time would be faster under XP than win2K, but to get all the way to usable after boot may not be any faster.
I’ve never attempted gaming within a VM, and wouldn’t even try except possibly on VMWare workstation…its got some LIMITED DirectX support in it but I don’t have a copy so I don’t know how it would work.
I do something similar to what you propose, I have a corp VM for work with all my work needed software and VPN client in it, and then use the base OS for whatever I need to have going on. When I’m in the office, I keep the VM on an external screen and the base OS is on the laptop screen. With 2GB of ram and a 7200rpm 200gb drive its not bad. The only issue I have with it is that Copernic desktop search tends to have some issues inside the VM.
Hey Dave - thanks for all the thoughts and ideas. Much appreciated!
On drive speed: 7200 is the minimum on this machine. In fact, in a pinch I could put some VMs on my 10k raptor.
Love the idea on hibernate. Many thanks for that!
I might have to install a clean XP and a clean Win2k on this machine to compare boot times. I was thinking that win2k would boot faster… but now you’ve got me reconsidering. I only have one XP license to burn, so it’s either the primary OS or a VM — I can’t do both. (ethically).
As a side note: Adobe Acrobat Pro hates VMs too. Learned that one the hard way on a different project.
After I posted this I started paying closer attention to the VM’s on my laptop and I did notice a bit of lag, but it seemed limited to certain applications, and always while I was doing something relatively resource hungry on the base OS. Until I was actively watching it to see I didn’t notice it though.
I found it strange that coming out of hibernate was faster than suspend/resume in VMware, but it really is. These days I just close the lid on my laptop, let it hibernate the whole thing(Base and VMs) and then open it and its up and ready in a minute or so…by the time I’ve dug out a mouse and power brick its ready for use.
With XP they did a LOT of multithreading of the boot processes, but they also give you control of the desktop before its really ready for usage. So while XP looks like its ready to go in 45 seconds of boot time, there’s usually about 30 seconds more time to go before its REALLY ready.
Test and see…worst case you go hit Newegg and get a second copy of XP if it ends up that you want the VM and the Base as the same OS..
Heh..what DOES Acrobat like anyway? I just spent the better part of an afternoon at a client updating all their installs of Acrobat Reader to 8.1.2, Acrobat performed a tad better once I found the disablers for BeyondAcrobat, Updater5, Sent to Kinkos and all the rest of its “additional features”.
Ah… you know, I install Acrobat Pro for all our folks but I don’t run it myself. I’ve never thought to actually tweak it a bit! I should do the same disabling — we sure don’t need any of that crap loading.
(I’ll stick with Foxit Reader, personally. I don’t create ‘em, I just read ‘em — unlike the rest of the office.)
heh..so you hate your users that much?
Take a look at appdeploy.com, between there and a blogger named stealthpuppy(Aaron Parker) I assembled a batch file that made Acrobat Reader actually usable.
You would be better off running something like VMWare ESX which I believe has its own very simple OS so will run on “bare metal” machines.
The host OS will not interfere with your virtual machines much at all then.
The main limitations which I think you’re missing are that your USB devices will quickly deteriate due to the increased read/write.
Also, you will not get very good speed out of the USB devices and some applications (i.e. if you’re a gamer) won’t like the rather limited hardware that VMWare provides by default. This won’t be due to DirectX in itself.. just due to the limitations of the emulated hardware.
That said it still is an excellent idea. I particularly liked watching a “webinar” in which they stated that in a clustered enviroment these devices can often manage themselves so well that if a host dies it can bring it back up on some other machine in seconds. All you have to care about is keeping the network sane and providing a well backed up and reliable storage location for the machines to run from.
Hi Matthew — first off, let me thank you. Your blogx package was my first blog and what really got me hooked several years ago
The ESX stuff looks really really cool. But somehow I bet it isn’t free… however, before I build another VMware server at the office it is definitely something I should look into.
VMware Infrastructure Foundation is only $1540. Or you could go for VMware ESX Server 3i for $495(but thats without any of the management stuff).
I’d love to play with these, but the cost is way out of my pricerange.
Thanks for the article and comments. I’m currently looking for ways to get Linux and Windows on the same box at the same time. The best thing for me has just been using Cygwin and VMWare Server on WinXP and Wine or VirtualBox on Linux.
Jeff
Hi Jeff - have you looked at andLinux? I’ve only had time to dabble with it a bit so far, but it’s pretty slick!
Here’s a very quick look at it — I need to do more: http://www.solo-technology.com/blog/2008/02/22/andlinux-quick-look/
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I had found this site while working on my final year project and I really needed to concentrate on that.
Thanks for your kind comments on BlogX, it always surprises me to find others appreciated what I did pretty much as a hobby.
Back to the topic though, If separating your work and your leisure would increase your productivity (this is EXACTLY what my final year project was on) perhaps your organisation would be willing to fund VMware related products as a test? Maybe you could wangle it with VMware? If you need to do performance testing before your company potentially rolls it out they might be able to offer a trial or a demo. Having not used any of the expensive VMware offerings (other than workstation) I make no claim as to its suitability.. but theoretically it would be faster as there’s not a clunky host operating system running on the hardware simultaneously.
My project looked at various issues that using virtual machines creates.. for a start it would be a bad idea to leave your work locked into virtual hard-disks as backing up 16GB of virtual machines weekly would be a very difficult backup policy to implement. Also, as for the comments on suspend, Windows XP doesn’t handle suspend very well. About a year ago a few of my fellow students and I were discussing how from suspending our laptops and rushing to a lecture we observed Windows never quite runs as fast as if we had shut it down.. it’s as if there’s a few memory leaks that get in the way.
However suspend is a VERY fast option if you want to quickly switch between virtual machines as I found (in my project test cases) hibernation took longer, whereas VMware will sometimes suspend parts of operating systems in the background (whereas with hibernate you are waiting for the guest to manage the suspend). I recommend using suspend but rebooting the virtual machines when it’s convenient.
Performance increases can be made by stopping or removing un-necessary items on the virtual machines (i.e. Wireless Zero Configuration, Windows Security Centre, Windows Audio et. al)
Anyway, before I pretty much re-write my report in this comment box my point is it’s not a terribly bad idea and it definitely has advantages (i.e. your work becomes less disjointed).
It’s just a shame VMware server doesn’t work effectively on Windows Vista yet.