No, not Twitter (though I'm scubabum there too it you want to follow)...
My ADD is kicking in hard tonight... three screens, three computers, one remote connection and a virtual machine! Gotta love it!
I got interested in hardware virtualization long ago but never had the hardware or software to support it. Last year I built a modern computer (AMD Phenom 6 core processor with 8 GB of RAM) and started playing with virtualization.
I never really got things cooking because every virtual machine requires software and each instance requires its own license so toying with Windows would have cost me $100 a pop for new installs (my old Windows XP installation media was corrupt, never saved any Vista media). Now, since I'm a student (check out Dreamspark), I have access to free versions of Windows Server 2008. I installed Virtualbox and away we go!
The first step was to create the space for the virtual machine (VM) to run in. The Virtualbox software stepped me through the process and very quickly I had a 20 GB virtual harddrive for my install.
Installing Server 2008 wasn't much different than installing it directly on a computer. I downloaded the software to my file server (Unraid server that will soon be virtualized using ESXi) and shared the ISO using an addon for Unraid and attached the ISO to the VM I created above. On initial start of the VM the installation media booted as if it were a CD-ROM in a real computer and allowed me to install my operating system.
Once Server 2008 was running it automatically detected virtual network access and started downloading updates and service packs. After a few restarts to get all of the updates installed I had a fully functional VM.
Running Windows 7 Professional and Windows Server 2008 on the same hardware was causing some serious lag issues. My initial thought was that I was overburdening the processor but after downloading Windows widgets to track CPU, RAM and SWAP usage I found that my 8GB of RAM was the bottleneck. Luckily, RAM is cheap right now ($45ish for 2x4GB DDR3 non-ECC 240 pin RAM) so I upgraded to 16GB and my lag went away.
Great, now I have two OSs running on the same hardware (dual monitors are important here), so what? Since I'm a student... I also have access to a free version of MS Visual Studio 2010 Pro! I have a modern MS OS that is isolated from my production/play machine that I can install an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in! If I right some code and it breaks my machine, it's a virtual machine that can be quickly returned to a useful state, all while I keep plugging away on my real machine!
The remote connection is to my Unraid server, I'm moving files from four smaller drives to two larger drives in preparation for moving that machine to a virtual OS. Should be fun!
And, for the haters, I already installed Ubuntu desktop and server and Slackware as VMs. Ubuntu works like a champ but my Linux noobishness has kept me from getting the Slackware VM up, probably going to host those on the ESXi box when it's up, speed of execution for me will be more important on those OS's so I'd rather they be closer to bare metal rather than running in a VM on top of another OS. Those installs will be another post though.
My ADD is kicking in hard tonight... three screens, three computers, one remote connection and a virtual machine! Gotta love it!
I got interested in hardware virtualization long ago but never had the hardware or software to support it. Last year I built a modern computer (AMD Phenom 6 core processor with 8 GB of RAM) and started playing with virtualization.
I never really got things cooking because every virtual machine requires software and each instance requires its own license so toying with Windows would have cost me $100 a pop for new installs (my old Windows XP installation media was corrupt, never saved any Vista media). Now, since I'm a student (check out Dreamspark), I have access to free versions of Windows Server 2008. I installed Virtualbox and away we go!
The first step was to create the space for the virtual machine (VM) to run in. The Virtualbox software stepped me through the process and very quickly I had a 20 GB virtual harddrive for my install.
Installing Server 2008 wasn't much different than installing it directly on a computer. I downloaded the software to my file server (Unraid server that will soon be virtualized using ESXi) and shared the ISO using an addon for Unraid and attached the ISO to the VM I created above. On initial start of the VM the installation media booted as if it were a CD-ROM in a real computer and allowed me to install my operating system.
Once Server 2008 was running it automatically detected virtual network access and started downloading updates and service packs. After a few restarts to get all of the updates installed I had a fully functional VM.
Running Windows 7 Professional and Windows Server 2008 on the same hardware was causing some serious lag issues. My initial thought was that I was overburdening the processor but after downloading Windows widgets to track CPU, RAM and SWAP usage I found that my 8GB of RAM was the bottleneck. Luckily, RAM is cheap right now ($45ish for 2x4GB DDR3 non-ECC 240 pin RAM) so I upgraded to 16GB and my lag went away.
Great, now I have two OSs running on the same hardware (dual monitors are important here), so what? Since I'm a student... I also have access to a free version of MS Visual Studio 2010 Pro! I have a modern MS OS that is isolated from my production/play machine that I can install an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in! If I right some code and it breaks my machine, it's a virtual machine that can be quickly returned to a useful state, all while I keep plugging away on my real machine!
The remote connection is to my Unraid server, I'm moving files from four smaller drives to two larger drives in preparation for moving that machine to a virtual OS. Should be fun!
And, for the haters, I already installed Ubuntu desktop and server and Slackware as VMs. Ubuntu works like a champ but my Linux noobishness has kept me from getting the Slackware VM up, probably going to host those on the ESXi box when it's up, speed of execution for me will be more important on those OS's so I'd rather they be closer to bare metal rather than running in a VM on top of another OS. Those installs will be another post though.
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