Re: [Xen-users] Purchasing only the Windows PV drivers for Xen

[jim burns <jim_burn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri September 7 2007 9:02:56 am Emre Erenoglu wrote:
> and yes, we have XenExpress, but this release wants to wipe-out my entire
> disk just to install itself. Does Vmware server do that? never seen. Just
> installs on a system that "you have setup".

Same problem here. Maybe my next computer I'll devote to XenExpress, and host 
Vista and MacOS.

> Maybe I should say, then, "I want to be able to setup xenexpress on a
> system that I previously set-up myself, if possible even choosing my own
> distribution".

Don't forget about xen-tools-ioemu (SuSE) or xen (fedora - fedora's rpm more 
closely match what xensource offers) - these provide hvmloader and qemu-dm. 
When I first setup my winxp pro hvm guest with virt-manger on fc7, xen 3.1.0, 
the performance was abysmal. When I started optimizing the the xml config, 
and converting to a python config, with ioemu drivers, the performance became 
acceptable. Network throughput is about half of native, disk i/o is about 5 
times slower (instead of 50), and I can actually play music videos with no 
jerkiness (at least WMP and Quicktime - Realplay is still a problem).

Of course, you still get the Windows PV Tools with the free XenExpress, though 
some in this thread found the sata & scsi drivers a problem. When I get the 
chance, I'll see if I can just enable video and network drivers in my config. 
I suspect that I'll need to use a copy of my winxp image file, since the PV 
tools involve installing drivers on your guest's disk image. Any body been 
down this road already?

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