Xen

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 came built with the XEN virtualization software. I installed Centos 5.0 this afternoon on a Dell 2950 with two dual core CPUs. I made sure to select the virtualization option during the OS install. I also had to enable the virtualization option in the BIOS for the CPUs, but in the end I was able to successfully launch the XEN VM manager.

I stumbled upon a lab from Red Hat walking you through how to setup different VM scenarios. I was able to run the command virt-manager and get a window similar to the start screen for VMWare. Tomorrow I am taking my Windows XP disk in and am going to try and get an XP machine up and running in XEN.

It has been a few years since I used Linux extensively. I had begun only using CYGWIN to get my XTerm windows that I love so dearly. After starting the new job I have started running Linux on the laptop again. It always works great if you are ok with having to settle on a few issues...the chief being Office Application interoperability. I always end up with a Windows XP Pro VM using VMware, but I would really like to use the native and open source solution provided from Red Hat. I will let you know how it goes.

Matthew