virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Igor Gueths]

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Hi Greg.
On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 11:07:48PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
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> Igor and all,
> 
> On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:32:34PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> > I am assuming that if you are
> > using UML to virtualize Linux guests on Linux hosts, that as far as the
> > installers go, they need to have some sort of remote installation functionality,
> > SSH or otherwise?
> 
> With uml, you can't just take an iso image, and do an install like you
> would with physical hardware, or in something like virtualbox. When
> installing debian inside a uml machine, I used rootstrap, which could
> be modified for other distros according to the rootstrap docs. I did
> once install slackware inside a uml, but I think it was something like
> 6 years ago or so. I do remember that it took me quite a few hours,
> and some hit and miss trials before I got the installer to install
> into a uml machine all the way through to the end. That's all I can
> recall though, given how long ago it was, and because I played with it
> only one time, but did manage to get slackware installed into a uml
> like I said, from what I can recall. To answer your question,
> rootstrap gets input from, and writes output to your controlling
> terminal, so you can use it over ssh, or in front of a physical
> keyboard if you'd like. I personally like to deal with an installed
> system inside of a uml machine via ssh, though there are ways to map
> uml consoles to your own physical system's consoles, and not only.
> 

Interesting, I'll have to check that out. It sounds like it could come in handy
for doing textmode stuff.
>
> > What I am basically going for is a solution where I can grab
> > pretty much any distro that has a textmode installer i.e., Centos, Debian, Arch,
> > etc, get it installed, and render it bootable so I could play with
> > it.
> 
> I would personally use virtualbox under a windows host for such a
> scenario. In case someone is wondering why I'd do it under a windows
> host, there are a couple of reasons. First, the debian packages for
> virtualbox require x. You could just use the self-extracting version,
> provided you agree to the PUEL license, to get a headless system
> without needing x, but going that route means the software isn't
> installed through your distro's package management, and getting it off
> later could be a pain. The final reason is that under windows, NVDA
> does a good job dealing with the GUI, as I already mentioned. In fact,
> whenever I want to use the GUI to do something, rather than the
> command line, I shutdown my copy of wineyes, and bring up nvda. There
> is no such option for now under orca as far as I know, you're limited
> to using VBoxManage for everything, like it or not. 
> 

AS far as I know, the only thing VBoxManage cannot do that the GUI can is map
alternate host keys, and even then I figured out that VBoxSDL can arbitrarily do
it via VBoxSDL --detecthostkey && VBoxSDL --hostkey <above values>.
>
> That's just my own preference, and I do realize others may choose to
> do things differently for their own probably as good reasons.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
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Igor
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