First I want to thank the linux community for being here. Not trying to blow sunshine up anybody's butt, but my disgust level with Microsoft just continues to elevate.
I remember linux from the days when Nessus was free and Netcat was new (yeah I'm that old). I drifted away, and now I'm back.
But clients still want Windows, so how to deliver? Answer: free virtual environment. Box get screwed up? I can run the "Windows Recovery Console" ...or spin up a clone. Or I could pay $7K for a VMWare Server license. Or not.
So as a teaching tool I took an old Dell Dimension 755, upgraded the CPU to a quad core with VT ($20 used on Amazon), bought a new 500GB HD, and away we go!
Don't forget to turn on VT in the BIOS.
Downloaded, burned and launched installer CD for Ubuntu 14.04 desktop. Installed Ubuntu, ran "sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin bridge-utils". Hacked around with it enough to get VMs installed running Ubuntu Desktop and Windows Vista. They work. Cloned the Ubuntu vm, copied the file onto an external hard drive, deleted the original, copied the backed up image file into the /var/lib/libvirt/images folder, created a new vm, imported the moved file, and cranked it up. This is pretty sweet! I like qemu, the interface makes sense. Used gparted to add disk space to non-running vm images (though it is a several-step process, it works reliably). Google is your friend.
BTW, I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to have the installer determine package dependencies for you and install them automagically...
So next was on to RAID. Bought another cheapo HD (total investment so far: about $150) and installed it in the can. Copied the existing vm images onto the external HD. Downloaded and burned a CD for Ubuntu Server 64 bit, configured software RAID 1, installed it, selecting "virtualization server" option during server install. Ran "sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop" (as I said, I like qemu). I think I had to manually install part of qemu.
And again, it works. Re-imported my existing vms and both of them work. Not hardware dependent. Experimenting now with different file formats (RAW, qcow2) and will experiment with backing up / snapshotting, etc. Also need to learn to write configs for the virtual networks, and optimize disk and network performance.
So far so good.
I remember linux from the days when Nessus was free and Netcat was new (yeah I'm that old). I drifted away, and now I'm back.
But clients still want Windows, so how to deliver? Answer: free virtual environment. Box get screwed up? I can run the "Windows Recovery Console" ...or spin up a clone. Or I could pay $7K for a VMWare Server license. Or not.
So as a teaching tool I took an old Dell Dimension 755, upgraded the CPU to a quad core with VT ($20 used on Amazon), bought a new 500GB HD, and away we go!
Don't forget to turn on VT in the BIOS.
Downloaded, burned and launched installer CD for Ubuntu 14.04 desktop. Installed Ubuntu, ran "sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin bridge-utils". Hacked around with it enough to get VMs installed running Ubuntu Desktop and Windows Vista. They work. Cloned the Ubuntu vm, copied the file onto an external hard drive, deleted the original, copied the backed up image file into the /var/lib/libvirt/images folder, created a new vm, imported the moved file, and cranked it up. This is pretty sweet! I like qemu, the interface makes sense. Used gparted to add disk space to non-running vm images (though it is a several-step process, it works reliably). Google is your friend.
BTW, I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to have the installer determine package dependencies for you and install them automagically...
So next was on to RAID. Bought another cheapo HD (total investment so far: about $150) and installed it in the can. Copied the existing vm images onto the external HD. Downloaded and burned a CD for Ubuntu Server 64 bit, configured software RAID 1, installed it, selecting "virtualization server" option during server install. Ran "sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop" (as I said, I like qemu). I think I had to manually install part of qemu.
And again, it works. Re-imported my existing vms and both of them work. Not hardware dependent. Experimenting now with different file formats (RAW, qcow2) and will experiment with backing up / snapshotting, etc. Also need to learn to write configs for the virtual networks, and optimize disk and network performance.
So far so good.