I''ve read the FAQ and bits of information on the Xen website and in particular, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4 Does Xen support Microsoft Windows? Unfortunately there are no plans to support any versions of Windows in the near future. Furthermore, a port of Windows would be encumbered by licensing issues. Longer term, virtualisation features in next-generation CPUs should make it much easier to support unmodified OSes: at that time we will reconsider Windows support. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can I know a little bit more about, How much changes are involved in the O.S.? Was Microsoft even approached with this project to see what their take on it is? Next generation CPU / Intel''s VT, how soon can we expect a Xen release to support this? Given all of the above, what are the other challenges involved in supporting Windows on Xen and what sort of timeline are we looking at? Cheers, M Afifi ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It''s fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
> How much changes are involved in the O.S.?For a native Xen port: * The OS memory management code must be modified to handle running in non-contigous physical memory (rather hard) * The OS context switching code needs to be changed to call into Xen * the platform initialisation code needs mostly removing and replacing with a small amount of Xen-specific stuff * add various support infrastructure control interface, event channels, virtual interrupts * Virtual device drivers need to be written (OK if someone takes the time to understand the Windows driver API) Am I missing anything guys? Anyhow, this requires source code access, which is the problem :-( I heard talk of possibly getting Windows running under some extra virtualisation features without XP src code access but I think that''s more of a theory at the moment, with no plans to work on it.> Was Microsoft even approached with this project to see what their take on > it is?MS Research in Cambridge provided support for a port of Win XP to Xen 1.2 to be carried out locally some time ago. I think they were really interested in it as a research platform rather than a product, which is fair enough - Microsoft have their own virtualisation platform, so I imagine they''d concentrate on that.> Next generation CPU / Intel''s VT, how soon can we expect a Xen > release to support this?In-Xen support for VT is present, although I''m not sure the corresponding userspace support code is checked in yet. I don''t think Intel are disclosing when VT hardware will be released, however.> Given all of the above, what are the other challenges involved in > supporting Windows on Xen and what sort of timeline are we looking at?Since there''s VT code being integrated into Xen currently it seems reasonable to assume that when VT hardware comes out, Windows will Just Work (TM) but I don''t know the concrete plans. I may be wrong... HTH, Mark ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It''s fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
Mark A. Williamson wrote:> Since there''s VT code being integrated into Xen currently it seems reasonable > to assume that when VT hardware comes out, Windows will Just Work (TM) but I > don''t know the concrete plans. I may be wrong...Well, I think that even if Windows itself can run unmodified, there''d still need to be a virtual BIOS, virtual VGA device, virtual IDE controller, virtual NIC device, etc. They''d need to be emulations of real devices, at least they''d have to be availabe until drivers can be loaded (and written, of course) for Windows that can take over and bypass the emulated devices. So the support for Intel VT/AMD Pacifica is just the first step of many, really. -- Derrik Pates demon@devrandom.net ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It''s fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
>Mark A. Williamson wrote: >> Since there''s VT code being integrated into Xen currently it seems >>reasonable to assume that when VT hardware comes out, Windows will Just >>Work (TM) but I don''t know the concrete plans. I may be wrong... > >Well, I think that even if Windows itself can run unmodified, there''d >still need to be a virtual BIOS, virtual VGA device, virtual IDE >controller, virtual NIC device, etc. They''d need to be emulations of >real devices, at least they''d have to be availabe until drivers can be >loaded (and written, of course) for Windows that can take over and >bypass the emulated devices. So the support for Intel VT/AMD Pacifica is >just the first step of many, really.Some support for fully virtual devices is already checked into the -unstable tree (see tools/ioemu). This is useful for start-of-day, but in practice for performance one would replace these drivers with Xen-aware paravirtualized ones after install. cheers, S. ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It''s fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
Thanks for the information everyone. It''s a shame that Microsoft are seeing it mainly as a research opportunity when clearly Xen has already attracted some rather big players and customers. On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 07:41:38 +0000, Steven Hand <Steven.Hand@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:> > >Mark A. Williamson wrote: > >> Since there''s VT code being integrated into Xen currently it seems > >>reasonable to assume that when VT hardware comes out, Windows will Just > >>Work (TM) but I don''t know the concrete plans. I may be wrong... > > > >Well, I think that even if Windows itself can run unmodified, there''d > >still need to be a virtual BIOS, virtual VGA device, virtual IDE > >controller, virtual NIC device, etc. They''d need to be emulations of > >real devices, at least they''d have to be availabe until drivers can be > >loaded (and written, of course) for Windows that can take over and > >bypass the emulated devices. So the support for Intel VT/AMD Pacifica is > >just the first step of many, really. > > Some support for fully virtual devices is already checked into the > -unstable tree (see tools/ioemu). This is useful for start-of-day, > but in practice for performance one would replace these drivers with > Xen-aware paravirtualized ones after install. > > cheers, > > S. >------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It''s fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel
> Some support for fully virtual devices is already checked into the > -unstable tree (see tools/ioemu).As this apparently adds a g++ build requirement, would it be possible to add a switch or build option or something to avoid building ioemu? My build process is currently breaking because of the (appreciated) addition of ioemu/g++/X11 build requirements. -- Jared Rhine <jared@wordzoo.com> ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel