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Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes

2006-Jul-03 02:09 UTC

[Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

Hello,

I''m buying a new computer with a Pentium D 9xx processor and I was
thinking
of using Xen to run Linux and Windows XP Pro. The first thing I noticed in
the Xen Manual is that Pentium D isn''t listed as a supported processor,
only
x86 is support and not 64Bits. Can I still run Xen?

Related to graphics support I whish to know how do we "switch" guest
OS if
only one monitor is availble? If I''ve a graphics card with 2 outputs
(dual
head), or a SLI configuration, is it possible to use dual head in the
guests? And to have one OS in one monitor and the other in the second
monitor? If I''ve two guests, Fedora and Windows XP Pro, can I run 3D
accelerated games in Windows?

Can I "tri"-boot one of the OSes, that is, run a guest under Xen then
reboot
and run that same OS without Xen?

Thanks for your time and patience reading this :D

-- 
Alexandre Gomes, Portugal


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Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Jerry Amundson

2006-Jul-03 15:34 UTC

head link

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

On Sun July 2 2006 21:09, Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes
wrote:> Hello,
>
> I''m buying a new computer with a Pentium D 9xx processor and I was
> thinking of using Xen to run Linux and Windows XP Pro. The first
> thing I noticed in the Xen Manual is that Pentium D isn''t listed
as a
> supported processor, only x86 is support and not 64Bits. Can I still
> run Xen?
Probably. Depends on your "xx" - see 
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors
The manual lists "x86/64" - did you mean something else?
> Related to graphics support I whish to know how do we "switch"
guest
> OS if only one monitor is availble? If I''ve a graphics card with 2
> outputs (dual head), or a SLI configuration, is it possible to use
> dual head in the guests? And to have one OS in one monitor and the
> other in the second monitor? If I''ve two guests, Fedora and
Windows
> XP Pro, can I run 3D accelerated games in Windows?
Can''t help there - you might look for recent thread 
on "devices", "graphical", etc.
> Can I "tri"-boot one of the OSes, that is, run a guest under Xen
then
> reboot and run that same OS without Xen?
Probably. (sorry - ask a general question, get a general answer ;-)

jerry

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Petersson, Mats

2006-Jul-03 15:43 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> Jerry Amundson
> Sent: 03 July 2006 16:35
> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions
> 
> On Sun July 2 2006 21:09, Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I''m buying a new computer with a Pentium D 9xx processor and
I was
> > thinking of using Xen to run Linux and Windows XP Pro. The first
> > thing I noticed in the Xen Manual is that Pentium D isn''t 
> listed as a
> > supported processor, only x86 is support and not 64Bits. Can I still
> > run Xen?
> 
> Probably. Depends on your "xx" - see 
> http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors
> The manual lists "x86/64" - did you mean something else?
> 
> > Related to graphics support I whish to know how do we
"switch" guest
> > OS if only one monitor is availble? If I''ve a graphics card
with 2
> > outputs (dual head), or a SLI configuration, is it possible to use
> > dual head in the guests? And to have one OS in one monitor and the
> > other in the second monitor? If I''ve two guests, Fedora and
Windows
> > XP Pro, can I run 3D accelerated games in Windows?
> 
> Can''t help there - you might look for recent thread 
> on "devices", "graphical", etc.
Simple answer is NO, you can''t run 3D accellerated anything under Xen,
because the way that graphics cards (except really REALLY old ones) work
means that driver needs to know the actual physical address in memory,
which is "lied" about to the OS in HVM guests...
> 
> > Can I "tri"-boot one of the OSes, that is, run a guest 
> under Xen then
> > reboot and run that same OS without Xen?
> 
> Probably. (sorry - ask a general question, get a general answer ;-)
As Jerry said, probably: As long as the OS lives in a partition rather
than a file, yes, it would be possible... But some PnP-OS''s get a
bit[1]
confused when the modern IDE controller suddenly gets replaced with a
pretty basic old-style one (QEMU IDE) after reboot, at may not even work
correctly under those circumstances... Same with graphics cards that
appear/disappear depending on which way you boot the system, not always
handled OK [although since the graphics card isn''t immediately needed
for the actual boot, more likely to work]. 

[1] Some OS''s go a bit beyond "a bit" on the confused scale,
more like
completely and outright confounded under these circumstances... Win98
does not like having the main chipset replaced under it''s feet, for
example - it just plain stops working if the new chipset isn''t nearly
identical to the old one - unless you set some particular value in the
registry just before shutting down to say "Please use basic components,
I''ve just changed everything - rescan PnP components on boot",
which is
slow and easy to forget... ;-)

--
Mats> 
> jerry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 


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Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
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Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes

2006-Jul-03 16:10 UTC

head link

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

I only had read this part, and misunderstud the next few lines:

"Xen currently runs on the x86 architecture, requiring a
``P6'''' or newer
processor (e.g. Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium IV,
Xeon, AMD Athlon, AMD Duron). Multiprocessor machines are supported, and
there is support for HyperThreading (SMT). In addition, ports to IA64 and
Power architectures are in progress." - Xen Manual

I believe Windows had, and still has, something called Hardware Profiles,
couldn''t that be used to smooth this "hardware" changes?

Related to 3D, Xen Manual "What''s New" says "AGP/DRM
graphics" but I
couldn''t find any other reference to either AGP or DRM in the Manual -
isn''t
this supposed to enable some acceleration? I would not be bothered if I only
could get 3D acceleration at one OS (Windows).

At last, is there any Virtualization product either free or commercial that
can provide me all this?

On 7/3/06, Petersson, Mats <Mats.Petersson@amd.com>
wrote:>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com
> > [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of
> > Jerry Amundson
> > Sent: 03 July 2006 16:35
> > To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> > Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions
> >
> > On Sun July 2 2006 21:09, Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I''m buying a new computer with a Pentium D 9xx processor
and I was
> > > thinking of using Xen to run Linux and Windows XP Pro. The first
> > > thing I noticed in the Xen Manual is that Pentium D
isn''t
> > listed as a
> > > supported processor, only x86 is support and not 64Bits. Can I
still
> > > run Xen?
> >
> > Probably. Depends on your "xx" - see
> > http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors
> > The manual lists "x86/64" - did you mean something else?
> >
> > > Related to graphics support I whish to know how do we
"switch" guest
> > > OS if only one monitor is availble? If I''ve a graphics
card with 2
> > > outputs (dual head), or a SLI configuration, is it possible to
use
> > > dual head in the guests? And to have one OS in one monitor and
the
> > > other in the second monitor? If I''ve two guests, Fedora
and Windows
> > > XP Pro, can I run 3D accelerated games in Windows?
> >
> > Can''t help there - you might look for recent thread
> > on "devices", "graphical", etc.
>
> Simple answer is NO, you can''t run 3D accellerated anything under
Xen,
> because the way that graphics cards (except really REALLY old ones) work
> means that driver needs to know the actual physical address in memory,
> which is "lied" about to the OS in HVM guests...
> >
> > > Can I "tri"-boot one of the OSes, that is, run a guest
> > under Xen then
> > > reboot and run that same OS without Xen?
> >
> > Probably. (sorry - ask a general question, get a general answer ;-)
>
> As Jerry said, probably: As long as the OS lives in a partition rather
> than a file, yes, it would be possible... But some PnP-OS''s get a
bit[1]
> confused when the modern IDE controller suddenly gets replaced with a
> pretty basic old-style one (QEMU IDE) after reboot, at may not even work
> correctly under those circumstances... Same with graphics cards that
> appear/disappear depending on which way you boot the system, not always
> handled OK [although since the graphics card isn''t immediately
needed
> for the actual boot, more likely to work].
>
> [1] Some OS''s go a bit beyond "a bit" on the confused
scale, more like
> completely and outright confounded under these circumstances... Win98
> does not like having the main chipset replaced under it''s feet,
for
> example - it just plain stops working if the new chipset isn''t
nearly
> identical to the old one - unless you set some particular value in the
> registry just before shutting down to say "Please use basic
components,
> I''ve just changed everything - rescan PnP components on
boot", which is
> slow and easy to forget... ;-)
>
> --
> Mats
> >
> > jerry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> >
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
>


-- 
Alexandre Gomes, Portugal


_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Petersson, Mats

2006-Jul-03 17:15 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

You can run Xen on any P6-processor, just that you will not get the HVM
features, as that requires either an AMD SVM or Intel VT capable
processor, and as previously been adviced, not all Intel 9xx are VT
capable. Without HVM, you will not be able to run unmdified operating
systems, so you need to have access to the source-code and suitable
patch(es) to modify the source to understand Xen-isms. If you have a few
millions of dollars, a safe room with secure access, and willing to sign
your entire life away to Microsoft, you can get Windows source-code.
It''s not impossible, but it''s pretty close to... The next
question is
getting a patch put together by someone who understands this... 

I do know from experience (of moving a hard-disk from one machine to
another) that Windows copes poorly with hardware changes. How poorly
depends on which version of Windows and which particular changes you
make to the system, the smaller the change is, the more likely it is to
work well - and also if the change is needed "early" in boot,
it''s
harder to cope, because the infrastructure to test PnP features may not
be available, and a driver will possibly be loaded "blind", i.e. the
driver is loaded without checking if the hardware supports it or not.
Depending on how well-written the driver is, it may work well, or not so
well... 

I believe, but I''m not 100% sure (as I didn''t write the
documentation)
that the AGP/DRM support is related to Xen running Para-virtualized (aka
PV guest, i.e. modified source-code) guests. Which works fine, but
doesn''t support Windows, which is what your next question related to,
so
I presume that you actually wanted these features to work in Windws.
Since this is not a PV guest, it will require full-virtualization. 

I''ve written abou this several times, and if you do a search
you''ll find
some good explanations, but in short: We tell the OS that it''s got
memory from 0..256MB, but that''s not actually where the system gets
loaded, in physical memory. For arguments sake, we say that Windows is
loaded at 256MB..512MB. Now, some application wants to draw something to
the screen, and it''s a bimap located at 90MB into the guests memory.
Windows, knowing that memory starts at 0, will say to the graphics card
that it should draw the bitmap at 90MB. However, that memory is NOT
owned by the guest, but belongs to some other guest, and 99.999% sure to
NOT contain a bitmap, or anything else useful for the graphics card. So
it''s not going to work, however much you''d like it to. 

The most likely working system you could get, if you actually want
high-performance graphics on Windows would be to get the a
virtualization system that starts off in Windows, and thus you can use
the graphics hardware in Windows, and other operating systems get
virtualized on top of this windows installation. It''s unlikely that
both
the game(s) and virtual machines will run well at the same time, but at
least you can possibly get them to run simultaneously, and you can
certainly get Windows to run games without having to resort to two
different installations. 

In the future, there will be hardware to support remapping the physical
memory accesses that Windows (and other operating systems) tell to
hardware, such that we can "adjust" the REAL memory address that (for
example) a graphics card performs it''s operations on. But it''s
not
available today. This hardware is called IOMMU.

--
Mats

________________________________

	From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Alexandre
Miguel Pedro Gomes
	Sent: 03 July 2006 17:11
	Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
	Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

	I only had read this part, and misunderstud the next few lines:

	"Xen currently runs on the x86 architecture, requiring a
``P6''''
or newer processor (e.g. Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II, Pentium III,
Pentium IV, Xeon, AMD Athlon, AMD Duron). Multiprocessor machines are
supported, and there is support for HyperThreading (SMT). In addition,
ports to IA64 and Power architectures are in progress." - Xen Manual

	I believe Windows had, and still has, something called Hardware
Profiles, couldn''t that be used to smooth this "hardware"
changes?

	Related to 3D, Xen Manual "What''s New" says "AGP/DRM
graphics"
but I couldn''t find any other reference to either AGP or DRM in the
Manual - isn''t this supposed to enable some acceleration? I would not
be
bothered if I only could get 3D acceleration at one OS (Windows). 

	At last, is there any Virtualization product either free or
commercial that can provide me all this?

	On 7/3/06, Petersson, Mats < Mats.Petersson@amd.com
<mailto:Mats.Petersson@amd.com> > wrote: 

		> -----Original Message-----
		> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com
		> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On
Behalf Of 
		> Jerry Amundson
		> Sent: 03 July 2006 16:35
		> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
		> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation
questions
		>
		> On Sun July 2 2006 21:09, Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes
wrote:
		> > Hello,
		> >
		> > I''m buying a new computer with a Pentium D 9xx
processor and I was
		> > thinking of using Xen to run Linux and Windows XP
Pro. The first 
		> > thing I noticed in the Xen Manual is that Pentium D
isn''t
		> listed as a
		> > supported processor, only x86 is support and not
64Bits. Can I still
		> > run Xen?
		>
		> Probably. Depends on your "xx" - see 
		>
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors
		> The manual lists "x86/64" - did you mean something
else?
		>
		> > Related to graphics support I whish to know how do
we "switch" guest
		> > OS if only one monitor is availble? If I''ve a
graphics card with 2
		> > outputs (dual head), or a SLI configuration, is it
possible to use 
		> > dual head in the guests? And to have one OS in one
monitor and the
		> > other in the second monitor? If I''ve two guests,
Fedora and Windows
		> > XP Pro, can I run 3D accelerated games in Windows? 
		>
		> Can''t help there - you might look for recent thread
		> on "devices", "graphical", etc.

		Simple answer is NO, you can''t run 3D accellerated
anything under Xen,
		because the way that graphics cards (except really
REALLY old ones) work 
		means that driver needs to know the actual physical
address in memory,
		which is "lied" about to the OS in HVM guests...
		>
		> > Can I "tri"-boot one of the OSes, that is, run a
guest 
		> under Xen then
		> > reboot and run that same OS without Xen?
		>
		> Probably. (sorry - ask a general question, get a
general answer ;-)

		As Jerry said, probably: As long as the OS lives in a
partition rather 
		than a file, yes, it would be possible... But some
PnP-OS''s get a bit[1]
		confused when the modern IDE controller suddenly gets
replaced with a
		pretty basic old-style one (QEMU IDE) after reboot, at
may not even work 
		correctly under those circumstances... Same with
graphics cards that
		appear/disappear depending on which way you boot the
system, not always
		handled OK [although since the graphics card isn''t
immediately needed
		for the actual boot, more likely to work].

		[1] Some OS''s go a bit beyond "a bit" on the confused
scale, more like
		completely and outright confounded under these
circumstances... Win98
		does not like having the main chipset replaced under
it''s feet, for 
		example - it just plain stops working if the new chipset
isn''t nearly
		identical to the old one - unless you set some
particular value in the
		registry just before shutting down to say "Please use
basic components, 
		I''ve just changed everything - rescan PnP components on
boot", which is
		slow and easy to forget... ;-)

		--
		Mats
		>
		> jerry
		>
		> _______________________________________________
		> Xen-users mailing list
		> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
		> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
		>
		>

		_______________________________________________
		Xen-users mailing list
		Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
		http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

	-- 
	Alexandre Gomes, Portugal 

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Muli Ben-Yehuda

2006-Jul-03 18:21 UTC

head link

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

On Mon, Jul 03, 2006 at 07:15:23PM +0200, Petersson, Mats wrote:
> In the future, there will be hardware to support remapping the physical
> memory accesses that Windows (and other operating systems) tell to
> hardware, such that we can "adjust" the REAL memory address that
(for
> example) a graphics card performs it''s operations on. But
it''s not
> available today. This hardware is called IOMMU.
It is available on at least one IBM server family today. You can see
our on-going work to support it at
http://xenbits.xensource.com/ext/xen-iommu.hg and
http://xenbits.xensource.com/ext/linux-iommu.hg (although note we''re
targetting safe direct device access from PV guests at the moment, not
FV guests).

There''ll also be a paper and presentation about it at OLS late this
month. I gave a precursor to the OLS talk to the the local LUG earlier
today, the slides for which are available at
http://www.mulix.org/lectures/using-iommus-for-virtualization/using-iommus-for-virtualization.pdf.

Comments always appreciated :-)

Cheers,
Muli

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Petersson, Mats

2006-Jul-03 18:30 UTC

head link

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Muli Ben-Yehuda [mailto:muli@il.ibm.com] 
> Sent: 03 July 2006 19:22
> To: Petersson, Mats
> Cc: Alexandre Miguel Pedro Gomes; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions
> 
> On Mon, Jul 03, 2006 at 07:15:23PM +0200, Petersson, Mats wrote:
> 
> > In the future, there will be hardware to support remapping 
> the physical
> > memory accesses that Windows (and other operating systems) tell to
> > hardware, such that we can "adjust" the REAL memory address 
> that (for
> > example) a graphics card performs it''s operations on. But
it''s not
> > available today. This hardware is called IOMMU.
> 
> It is available on at least one IBM server family today. You can see
> our on-going work to support it at
> http://xenbits.xensource.com/ext/xen-iommu.hg and
> http://xenbits.xensource.com/ext/linux-iommu.hg (although note
we''re
> targetting safe direct device access from PV guests at the moment, not
> FV guests).
I am aware that there is some hardware out there with support for this.
But most desktop users will not want to use a fairly highend server as
their desktop machine. So I should have qualified my answer with
"It''s
not available today for desktop machines"... 
>From what I can read, the x366 doesn''t even have PCI-e slots, whichwould reduce it''s usefullness for the average gamer to near zero, and
as
the original post was about playing games on a desktop machine, it''s
still not particularly useful, even if the OP would accept a server as
their desktop machine... ;-)

I''m looking forward to seeing your presenatation at OLS. 

--
Mats



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Xen users - Jul 2006 - Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

[Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

Re: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions

RE: [Xen-users] Xen to Desktop/Workstation questions