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Recommendations for a Host OS?

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Renegade:
I've been mulling over how to escape from the clutches of proprietary and closed software. Not an easy task.

I think that I've come to the conclusion that my next OS needs to be a host OS to run virtual machines in. I can then entirely forget about all this disk cloning nonsense and reinstalling the OS silliness. If I need to back up my "work OS/VM", I can just copy it. Heck, I could run it off of a USB drive and share it between physical machines.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a host OS? The most important thing is that it is reliable and will let me run multiple VMs simultaneously. e.g. My main work VM (Windows), and a Linux VM for me to transition everything that doesn't absolutely 100% need to be done in Windows.

Also, has anyone ever heard of a way to move an OS from a physical disk into a VM?

x16wda:
I presume you want something more like a hypervisor on your hardware, not something like Virtualbox that runs inside an O/S.  I had pulled down an older VMware hypervisor but could not bring myself to install it (I despise VMware).  Have not had enough time to play with Xen personally, though I have rights to muck about with my company's Xen farm enough to cause trouble.

For your Windows box, try disk2vhd from Sysinternals to pull an image to a file.  I made a copy of a box just recently and it worked fine (in Virtualbox) with minor mucking about.  You'll most likely need to reactivate to keep Microsoft happy, of course.

I'll be very interested in the responses you get, thanks for the question!  :Thmbsup:

Renegade:
I presume you want something more like a hypervisor on your hardware, not something like Virtualbox that runs inside an O/S. 
-x16wda (March 06, 2013, 06:35 PM)
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Exactly. I want to run VMs inside of a host environment, whatever that is.

I had pulled down an older VMware hypervisor but could not bring myself to install it (I despise VMware). 
-x16wda (March 06, 2013, 06:35 PM)
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Sigh, yeah... I'd like to stay away from VMware if possible. My goal is to achieve computing independence from vendors, e.g. As much FLOSS as possible. That discussion belongs in the Basement though.

Have not had enough time to play with Xen personally, though I have rights to muck about with my company's Xen farm enough to cause trouble.
-x16wda (March 06, 2013, 06:35 PM)
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Hahaha! :D I believe that my VPS is running in Xen. Not sure. But it's one of the things I've got on my list. If anyone can say a few words about it, I'd be very interested.

For your Windows box, try disk2vhd from Sysinternals to pull an image to a file.  I made a copy of a box just recently and it worked fine (in Virtualbox) with minor mucking about.  You'll most likely need to reactivate to keep Microsoft happy, of course.
-x16wda (March 06, 2013, 06:35 PM)
--- End quote ---

Ah! Didn't know about that. I'll check it out. I'd LOVE to get my desktop into a VM. All this cloning nonsense is just way too painful. I want my main desktop OS to be portable as I'm entirely sick and tired of new installs and all that misery. There are a couple threads on similar topics right now - one on a new SSD and all that... pain, misery, ouch... :(

40hz:
Proxmox VE.

8)

kyrathaba:
If you're reasonably conversant with linux, Proxmox VE is the way to go. From what I've read, it's not for the faint-of-heart (i.e., those with only Windows familiarity).

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