Re: Options to use winxp and netbsd together with xen

[pierre-philipp braun <pbraun%nethence.com@localhost>]

Hi,

unless you have already used NetBSD as a workstation instead of a
server, I would advice to try it first in this regard, and check whether
it does support all your laptop's peripherals, if you are happy with
various aspects -- and quirks -- that makes it a bit more painful than
wide-spread GNU/Linux fully integrated desktop environments.  E.g.
suspend/resume, web browsing, and how your WM or DE is available on
NetBSD and how it behaves.

Even its XEN usage as dom0 has some limitations, I am thinking of thin
provisioning when using virtual disks as files: those cannot be sparse
as vnconfig(8) does not support it.  For integrating a XEN farm however,
and without X, and eventually with iSCSI, well that would do.

-- 
pierre-philipp

On 07/18/2018 05:33 AM, Mayuresh wrote:
> Please comment / advise on following requirement and what is the best way
> to meet it:
> 
> Hardware: Laptop, amd64, 4 core, 4GB for day to day personal +
> professional use
> 
> Requirement: Primary usage OS should be NetBSD. A certain use case at work
> requires use of Windows XP based proprietary software that has to talk
> with a certain USB device.
> 
> Current setup: Linux as main OS and WinXP as a Virtualbox guest.
> 
> Why change: 1. The setup is largely satisfactory, but occasionally printer
> under cups settings on Linux mysteriously disappear requiring
> reconfiguration from scratch. NetBSD setup without use of any intermediate
> daemon would be more stable. 2. Would also like to try Xen in place of
> VirtualBox. 3.  Generally, would prefer NetBSD for most of the use cases.
> Reasoning would be lengthy for this post.
> 
> 
> Constraints: The license of proprietary software on WinXP is node locked.
> Getting a new license is costly.
> 
> 
> Option 1: NetBSD Dom0, WinXP DomU
> 
> Cons 1: Restricted to single cpu on primary usage OS. But can live with
> it. Can possibly use NetBSD as DomU as well. But see the point below which
> is right now the main constraint.
> 
> Cons 2: Converting the VirtualBox vdi disk to "raw" and using it as DomU
> disk hasn't worked. It just leads to "blue screen of death". (A fresh
> installation of WinXP works, but my constraint is to carry the node locked
> software as explained above.)
> 
> If there is a reliable way to port the vdi disk to xen, would stick to
> this option as the remaining ones below involve at least one more OS to
> break the jinx.
> 
> 
> Option 2: NetBSD Dom0, Linux/FreeBSD DomU with VirtualBox based WinXP on
> top of it
> 
> Cons: Might work, but not sure whether multiple layers of virutalization
> (WinXP on VirtualBox on DomU on Xen) is a good idea for stability and
> performance.
> 
> 
> Option 3: Linux/FreeBSD Dom0, NetBSD, WinXP DomUs
> 
> As both Linux and FreeBSD have Dom0 ability as well as they both have
> VirtualBox, hope to run existing WinXP DomU over them solving the
> licensing issue. Will also get to use up to 3 cores for each of the DomUs.
> 
> Cons 1: Booting Dom0 and booting DomU again to reach simple use case like
> checking mail does not sound very appealing.
> 
> Cons 2: Have to deal with total 3 OSes with nuances of each.
> 
> 
> Option 4: Virtualbox on NetBSD over Linux emulation layer
> 
> I do not have skills to try this.
> Native Virtualbox on NetBSD - not sure when.
> 
> 
> Thanks for bearing with a lengthy question. Looking forward to your advice
> please.
> 
> Mayuresh
>