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Howto: Install Windows XP on Ubuntu Dapper using Xen 3.0 VT

planetjoel.com — This article describes how you can run Windows XP images on Ubuntu Dapper if you have a processor supporting Virtualization Technology, the new hardware based VM acceleration technology from Intel. Despite being extremely new it seems stable and quite usable for testing or dev. Very cool technology.

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  • spitfireaus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Nice that you can run Windows on Xen now,
    Very handy for those development tools not available on Linux

    Nice article and nice tech,
    Gets my digg
    • Herolint, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@spitfireaus

      What development tools are not available on Linux? Rich development tools and a rich development environment is exactly why I use Linux over Windows.

      I guess you could say that specific development software (e.g. Visual Studio) isn't available for Linux, but what does VS give you as a developer that you can find, and find done better, in Linux?

      Of course, this is a matter of personal taste, but I was just wondering.
    • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Inevitible mirror : http://www.duggmirror.com
      - Ben
    • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Argh, the comment-time-bug thing screwed up (only gave ~30seconds) and duggmirror isn't displaying right..

      CoralCache works though, burry previous post..
      http://www.planetjoel.com.nyud.net:8080/viewarticle/568/HOWTO%3A+Windows+XP+running+under+Xen+3.0+on+Ubuntu+Dapper+Drake
      - Ben
    • Haplo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1And in case you don't have a fancy processor: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/10/26/vmware-player-windows-xp.html
    • Klowner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Agreed Herolint, but there's some obscure stuff like FlashMX and stuff like that which refuses to work under Wine.

      Side note, VMware Player is free now, so anyone can create a virtual machine image using easyvmx.com and qemu-img as an alternative to Xen.
    • spitfireaus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Herolint

      I'm currently developing an application running on Symbian OS. Although there are a few tools for compiling programs on Linux, the emulator only runs on windows.

    • doolittle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Xen get's a digg for getting windows machine support!

      I still prefer vmware's free player, check this out to create machines for the free player...

      http://www.easyvmx.com/
  • rastan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Very cool, I keep hearing about this on the messageboards but noone actually explained how to do it. Thanks for finally codifying it in writing!
  • usefulidiot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4lol, ugly metroid background
  • sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was curious about doing this. I made a mention a few days back about using Xen to launch Barts PE from within Linux to run Windows apps.
  • pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What's different about this from using VMWare?
    • celticeric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4From what I understand, Xen is supposed to be faster than VMWare because it uses new hardware capabilities in some chipsets made specifically for virtualization. (Native speed faster!) However, I thought that Xen required the guest OS to run a modified kernel and so it didn't support Windows. Guess I was wrong about that.
    • rastan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Not much is different from VMWare. Both are hypervisors. However while VMware runs as an app, Xen runs at the kernel level (partially), which makes it ideally suitable for hosting or server environments because the host OS can be stripped down to the bare minimum and have all real work done in guests.

      The closest VMWare app to compare it to is ESX server. In that regard:
      #1: It's free and opensource (although VMWare Server is gratis, it's not open, and ESX is commercial/$$$)
      #2: It supports the new VT chips. I don't believe VMWare supports VT yet (I may be wrong)
      #3: If nothing else competition from Xen is probably what made VMWare make Server free in the first place, so the consumer wins :)
      #4: VMWare has better management tools ATM, but the Xensource tools and SuSE Xen tools are getting very good

      I still use VMWare Workstation for my development, but we've deployed several Xen servers in production to abstract services onto hosts, and they run great. It also enables companies like Quantact to let you have your own hosted VDS for $15/mo http://quantact.com (Disclaimer: I am a happy Quantact customer but not otherwise affiliated)
    • nacs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The biggest difference is the VT support. If you're using a VT enabled processor (like the new Intel processors and some very new AMDs), you'll get near native performance with Xen.

      Vmware workstation/server/player don't support VT acceleration.

      Parallels ( http://www.parallels.com ) does support VT though and runs very well in my Ubuntu system (it's also available for Windows and the new Intel Macs).
    • overcooked, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Last time I looked, and please correct me if thais has changed, VMplayer/Server claimed in their documentation not to support XP with SP2 or beyond. I never got around to test if theis could be made to work but it kind of put me off trying it further
  • tmcc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3With this approach, hardware-based virtualization, does that mean access to the 3d hardware and such are possible?

    It would be a great way to run games fairly seamlessly in Linux (possibly like how Mac OSX ran Mac OS9 apps).
    • rastan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Theoretically yes, but I bet this would require driver support, and since the good 3d drivers from ATI and Nvidia are closed source, it may take a while for that to come to fruition (if at all).
    • nacs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"it may take a while for that to come to fruition (if at all)."

      Nvidia has announced in their forums that they will be building Xen compatible Nvidia drivers for Linux soon.
    • eklitzke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The hardware is accessed by the host OS, in this case Ubuntu. So while you could use Windows software, video acceleration would be done by the Linux drivers.
  • mbradbury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Does anyone know of a list of CPUs that have VT support?
  • Sparticuz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Anyone know the speed comparisons between them? Xen vs. (K)Qemu vs. VMWare?
    • mbradbury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A bit old but there is a comparison here http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/performance.html
    • Herolint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Sparticuz

      My experience with Qemu was similar to the time I went camping in the winter and tried to get syrup on my pancakes. I don't know about Xen; yet.
    • lbrtuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That may be because qemu is a completely different concept. It's complete code translation. You try emulating a PPC or an ARM machine on your VMWare or Xen on x86. Or x86 on a SPARC. And so on.
    • Sparticuz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm using kqemu and it seems about 75% native
  • iceberg1414, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0VMware does support VT.
    • hackerssidekick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Where's your source/proof? Until you provide some, that's just FUD
  • starheart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As far as I know VMware requires VT for running 64bit guests on Intel processors. But then Core Duos aren't 64bit. Some Pentium Ds do support 64bit and VT.
  • Xyber411, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Fantastic, Now Windows Can Crash Both My Operating Systems At Once!!! :D
    (not that it actually happens, I'm just bitter towards MS).
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Running WinXP in a VM makes a lot of sense if you have the knowledge and know how though. If it crashes it doesn't take out the whole lot with it and its simply a matter of restarting the VM. With software suspend you can even run it at reasonable speeds. Backups are easy to maintain given the image system so you can run an XP system without any of the flaws (or at least greatly mimimising them).
  • saksirisan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My question....does installing Windows on Xen absolutely require a processor that supports VT?
  •  

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