minimal, simplest type 1 hypervisor ???

Discussion in 'Virtualization' started by smallhagrid, Jan 4, 2017.

  1. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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  2. cocachris89

    cocachris89 MDL Senior Member

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    VMware ESXi
     
  3. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    #3 smallhagrid, Jan 5, 2017
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2017
    (OP)
    Yes:
    I've looked at that & frankly trying to wade through all the gobble-de-gook of its docs was almost 100% unhelpful - left me with no more clue of what to do than if I hadn't tried reading how to get & use it !!!
    Maybe there are some useful/usable unofficial docs for it like ESXi for dummies, maybe ??

    Another user replied to my older, similar query thusly:
    Truth is, I seek whatever may be the simplest solution here - that is my goal - I have enough other things I am actively wanting to keep learning without having to add on a whole 'nother college education just to accomplish this one goal ?!?

    Thanks.
     
  4. ch100

    ch100 MDL Addicted

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    Why do you insist on Hypervisor type-1 for your purpose.
    VMWare workstation running on top of Windows (XP if you wish, but not the best choice) is as good or even better.
    Probably Hyper-V (with GUI) is the next easy to use, but you need to run a Server OS as the base machine.
     
  5. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Thanks for replying Ch100.

    My goal is to have the PC with the least possible OS presence as its 'foundation', and...:
    Using this as a stand-alone PC, to have the various OSes I like to use available quickly & easily as VMs from there.

    The reason I seek this solution is very simple=>
    No single OS does all the things that I like to do regularly & having multiple PCs/devices or having to deal with the tedium & time waste in multi-booting is also not as good as things could be this way.

    I stopped all forward movement with M$ OSes with XP; I do not use 7, 8, 10 or any of their server OSes - and I have used VirtualBox as well as VM Player - and I still think this would be a better solution IF it may be done without having to wade through endless processes & complications to achieve it.
     
  6. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Thanks for replying T-S.

    I very strongly prefer to avoid all 'modern' things made by M$, thanks:
    (As I said in my previous reply.)
    Proxmox may work as a stand-alone type of thing & I will see if I can find the needed info for that goal now that you've reminded me of it - but it does seem mostly server oriented & I do want to have the solution and guest OSes running on a single PC...hopefully.

    Thanks.
     
  7. T-S

    T-S MDL Guru

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    I think you're confused here. Which modern things? :g:

    The free HV lacks even the GUI, the automated updates can be completely disabled, the telemetry is minimal and you can uninstall it using dism, msmg and whatever.

    Basically it's a naked Windows which I use even as a minimal desktop using the SharpEnviro GUI (sort of a minimal linux coupled with LXDM) but with a powerful hypervisor plenty of possibilities

    About Proxmox you're not confused, you're just completely wrong.

    Proxmox is anything but something like Virtualbox or VMware workstation.

    It's just a web environment made to make easy to control the HyperVisors residing under the hood, then is up to you to choose what flavor use: kvm virtualization (good for everything), or paravirtualizzation (which requires specially crafted VMs, but is faster, then it's good just for virtualized Linux Servers)

    I use proxmox in production in many companies w/o any after deployment troubles, but still I think that the initial setup time is by far in favor of Hyper-V.
     
  8. wazzock

    wazzock MDL Senior Member

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    i have managed to shrink w7 and keep some networking, at 1.2 to 1.3gb installed. w10 will be between 1.7 and 2.3gb installed(estimate based on w7 experience). but these are with ntlite and a home license. :)
     
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  9. T-S

    T-S MDL Guru

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    You're still talking about the GUI. The free HV has no GUI. So forget that point and look how well it works (yes it works very well)

    It's a baremetal Hypervisor, technically win 8 is just another VM on top of it, so W8 is the addition, not HV.

    That's basically bulls**t, like most of what is written on the proxmox comparison table.

    MS is actually a major Linux Kernel contributor. Any recent or relatively recent Linux distro works perfectly as Hyper-V VM, almost always with no additional action needed.

    Practically although isn't that hard to install all the drivers needed in a Windows guest, using a Linux guest is even easier and faster.

    Also is a false statement that the guiless HyperV requires another server to be managed. You can either configure it using powershell or cmd, you can the Remote Server Administration Tool on any windows client, you can yse the remote desktop, VNC, NX, you can use some specialized configuration tools like Corefig, and so on.

    I love the Open source, and I'm a linux user since 1997 or so, but I hate the urban legends and the false statements.

    No need to be dishonest to promote something.
     
  10. LiteOS

    LiteOS Windowizer

    Mar 7, 2014
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    Nano server is kinda simple and small
    it might not suit u, but try it
     
  11. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    #13 smallhagrid, Jan 6, 2017
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2017
    (OP)
  12. T-S

    T-S MDL Guru

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    Nanoserver is

    A) not free

    B) Overly crippled and unpractical to configure and maintain.

    A great idea in theory done very bad practically, at least for now.
     
  13. T-S

    T-S MDL Guru

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    #15 T-S, Jan 6, 2017
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2017

    Obviously I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about that Promox table, which is clearly biased, to say the best.

    You need to ask yourself what you want from a virtualized environment.

    For a desktop usage, generally a program like VMware or virtualbox is better suited than a baremetal Hypervisor (the former has generally an easier USB/peripheral redirection, faster graphics, better 3D support and so on.

    On the other hand baremetal hypervisors can run in background are usually faster on more basic tasks, it's easier to decide what happens when the baremetal machine is turned off/restarted...

    Hyper-V can also overprovision the RAM and manage it dynamically (something like what the banks are doing with money).

    Then if you decide for VMware or Virtualbox, the host linux (or windows) is a really not relevant problem. Nowadays the GUI of the host takes just a fraction of the resources needed to run 3/4 virtual machines.

    But if you want to keep it minimal just start with something that allows you to installs what you need, Arch linux is unbeatable in this area (but you can use also a Manjaro distro, easier to install than Arch if you never bothered to install the former)

    Starting with something purposely reduced like Tinycore/Puppy or alike isn't generally a good idea. Then it depends on your skill.

    If you're skilled you can do whatever you like with whatever OS, no matter if Opensource or not.
     
  14. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    So, here I am more than 2 years later & never did go forward with the bare metal hypervisor idea...at least not yet.

    I have made use of Virtualbox & found that I severely dislike how it handles adding storage vs. VMWare which does that very cleanly.
    For the most part I am using a Linux host with VMs added and that is very stable.

    There has been mention of XCP-ng here recently:
    https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/free-hypervisor-alternative-xcp-ng.79681/
    And that looks interesting - but again, single PC usage rather than multiple PCs as server/client info is practically nonexistent from what I could (not...) find.

    I never did dig into the free Hyper-V or Proxmox...yet just because I had several friends who were win-doze users wanting to get free of what one called the 'yearly antivirus tax' so=>
    After helping those folks to use Linux instead along with a VM to allow continued usage of some s/w that needed to run in win-doze natively - I've done the same for myself.

    The biggest hurdle for me was my desire to keep my tweaked XP as-is, so I had to trim it down somewhat before P2V'ing it.

    One day I still hope to spend the time & efforts to make something even simpler, but for now this is as far as I've gotten.
    I was reminded of this thread by the newer one I mentioned above, and that is all from me - for now !!
     
  15. JLBENEDICT

    JLBENEDICT MDL Junior Member

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    VMware ESXi is pretty damn simple.. if you have even the slightest technical ability, you can put this to work without any problems.. The only minor issue is it is picky about NIC's, compared to Hyper-V and other OS's.
     
  16. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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