[Info-vax] HP's Partner Virtualization Program

[John Wallace]

On Aug 5, 9:52 pm, Arne Vajhøj <a... at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> JF Mezei wrote:
> > Main, Kerry wrote:
> >> I am sure readers here do understand, but just in case - the OpenVMS OS
> >> guest will need to be an Integrity V8.4 OS instance.
>
> > Just curious, shouldn't a Virtual Machine be able to provide total
> > transparency and let any version of the OS boot since its role is to
> > provide the illusion that the hosted instance has its own computer ?
>
> > Or does the HP-UX VM application require special drivers to be loaded in
> > the hosted OS instance  ?
>
> That is rather standard.
>
> MS has something for Windows guest OS'es for their virtualization
> software and they just released something for Linux guest OS'es
> as open source.
>
> Arne

Depends on what you consider to be the "standard".

In the virtualisation marketplace in general, surely VMware is the
standard. With the VMwares that I've used, you take your DOS floppy,
your Windows install CD, your Linux LiveCD/InstallCD, and boot them in
the VM and they Just Work (tm). No special drivers needed as far as
the guest OS is concerned. In other words, just as JF wanted,  "the VM
provides total transparency and lets any version of the OS boot since
its role is to provide the illusion that the hosted instance has its
own computer".

With the right tools I believe you can even take an existing bootable
disk image and magick it into a VMware-bootable container file.

Optionally you can add some magic in the guest to make the display
driver smarter, and to make host/guest file systems and host/guest cut
+paste work, but these "VMware tools" are the icing on the cake - out
of the box VMware gets you a fully functional PC. Originally, under a
Linux guest these "VMware tools" were VMware-supplied but FOSS
equivalents are now included in decent recent Linuxes (which is good,
as building the VMware ones from source could be tedious).

If folk have never tried it, get a free copy of (eg) VMware Player and
have a look at http://www.easyvmx.com to make yourself an empty set of
VMware files to put an OS into.

Obviously other virtualisation software is available and some of them
have their own justifications for wanting virtualisation-specific
hardware in the host and virtualisation-specific drivers in the guest.