[rescue] decisions, decisions

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Sun, May 01, 2005 at 10:18:20PM +0200, Joost van de Griek wrote:
> > Have you tried many esoteric systems yet under VPC 7? I can't figure out if
> > newer versions are getting more, or less compatible.
> 
> Well, when VPC was still a Connectix product, I can imagine it was in their
> best interest to make it as compatible as possible.

MS just announced that Linux is a supported environment in their
latest VPC release... that is, they won't just hang up the phone when
you have a VPC problem and you are booting Linux.

> Let's just hope VPC isn't mangled into a Windows application environment
> instead of the geek toy it is now.

Already in the process...  They took VPC and made a $495 "server"
add-on for Win2k3 Server that lets you boot multiple VMs and control
them.  You need to use an ActiveX object to control the VMs ... unless
you log into them some other way.

$CLIENT bought a low-end P4 Dell and added 2GB RAM - will be used to
replace a few older XP boxes that were doing things like Antivirus
server, etc.  We will boot a Linux VM for email and web serving, I
think.  They are a non-profit and get XP Pro for $35 and W2K3 Server
for $180, IIRC; so the OS license is not a big deal to them.

> > For example, NEXTSTEP for Intel runs under VPC5, but not VPC6. OS/2 Warp
> > Connect is just the wrong side of stable on either, but in different ways. AIX
> > 1.3 almost boots on both. BeOS r5 isn't terribly happy with VPC6  either. I've
> > been wondering whether I ought to give VPC 7 a shot, but I just can't make
> > myself drink the Kool-Aid.

They probably tried to cook the MMU virtualization and when they got
it working for MS OS'es they committed the code and called it a day.

--Patrick