Currently I run w2k as my host OS, and run Solaris as a guest under VMware. This is necessary, among other reasons, so that w2k can drive my 3D video card and my force-feedback USB joystick and I can run MS Flight Simulator using those devices while Solaris is running concurrently in the background (don''t ask). This means that I have to use NTFS rather than ZFS to manage my hard disks. I''ve read that part of Xen''s design is that it will provide a hardware multiplexing mechanism which allows hardware to be selectively allocated to particular virtual machines and driven directly by those machines rather than dom0 controlling all hardware and granting to domU machines only indirect access through virtual devices. With such multiplexing, I could run Solaris as dom0, w2k as domU, and when the w2k machine is allocated control of the console, it could drive the joystick and video card directly itself, thus allowing me to run MS Flight Simulator while avoiding the need for X windows on dom0 or even any non-text-mode video driver on dom0. Of course, this depends both on Solaris running as dom0 and Xen supporting this hardware-allocation feature. Are there any estimates on when both of these features will be available, even if just to the nearest quarter or half year? (This also requires a Vanderpool/Pacifica processor, along with support in Xen, so that I can run w2k in domU, but I''ve read that this support is supposed to be available by the time that Pacifica processors ship in the first half of 2006.) This message posted from opensolaris.org
David.Edmondson at Sun.COM
2006-Jan-03 09:27 UTC
[xen-discuss] Hardware multiplexing in Xen
* andrewee2 at yahoo.com [20051226T225812]:> Of course, this depends both on Solaris running as dom0 and Xen > supporting this hardware-allocation feature. Are there any estimates > on when both of these features will be available, even if just to > the nearest quarter or half year?I don''t have an estimate to give you for a Solaris dom0. Sorry. Xen 2.x currently supports the allocation of hardware to guest domains, though it doesn''t support VT/Pacifica. Xen 3.x doesn''t yet support hardware allocation to guest domains. It would be best to ask in the Xen project mailing lists (see http://lists.xensource.com) for an estimate of when that might be available. dme. -- David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems.