mmk Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Has anyone tried out XEN 3.0 with windows xp on a macbook pro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overdriven Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Erm... Correct me if I am wrong... but Xen can't virtualize WinXP officially yet... right? I thought only Linux/Unix (etc... Plan9) were supported... And you'd need to be running a linux distro as Xen + OSX isn't existant yet either? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoomie Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Neospy, I was just reading the Xen Wiki prior to finding this thread. According to the wiki, Xen version 3.0 can run an unmodified Windows XP on Intel processors that have hardware virtualization support (VT). Core Duo supports VT...as well as well as several other Intel processors currently available. Unfortunately it doesn't look like anyone has been able to make xen work on the macbooks yet...at least according to the wiki. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmk Posted October 13, 2006 Author Share Posted October 13, 2006 I read about a mac min running XP with Xen 3 ... so laptops (MB, MBP) should works also ... Anyone tried and not succeded? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ai Haibara Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 Yes, we can actually run Xen 3.0 on an Intel Mac Mini, so I think that isn't impossible to make it running on a MacBook. But (sigh) Xen needs Linux and GRUB to be booted. So, a Mac user that wants to use Mac OS X and Windows XP simultaneously (I think that Mac OS X should work well, like Windows XP does), needs to have a tri-OS machine with GRUB installed. Ok, it's not impossible to do, but honestly, a MacBook has only 60 GB of space on HD, if you install 3 OS on it you will finish the free space early. So, a possible solution maybe is: - create a small Linux partition that contains a very small distribution, only to boot GRUB and Xen - get GRUB to work on an Intel Mac Anyway, GRUB on a Mac isn't good, IMHO. Boot Camp or rEFIt are better. Sherry Haibara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anomaly256 Posted November 15, 2006 Share Posted November 15, 2006 Well, macbook PROs have 100~120gb at least. Mbootpack will let you combine multiple kernels into a single image specifically for achieving the likes of booting xen with lilo and other non-multiboot compatible bootloaders. Going to give it a go today anyway for at least xp and linux. OSX itself might be a different story? (ps: my current setup is refit -> bootcamp -> grub/lilo for anything linux anyway (to enable the mmapped ati vbios image), so I don't see how bootcamp or refit can be considered replacements for the bootloader or for eachother) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
withayanda Posted December 2, 2006 Share Posted December 2, 2006 Well, macbook PROs have 100~120gb at least. Mbootpack will let you combine multiple kernels into a single image specifically for achieving the likes of booting xen with lilo and other non-multiboot compatible bootloaders. Going to give it a go today anyway for at least xp and linux. OSX itself might be a different story? Were you able to get this going? I've been wanting to test this out myself, but just haven't had the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sev7en Posted December 3, 2006 Share Posted December 3, 2006 Anyway, GRUB on a Mac isn't good, IMHO. Boot Camp or rEFIt are better.Sherry Haibara I do agree, it's the best solution IHMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kocoman Posted December 9, 2006 Share Posted December 9, 2006 Is it possible to run OSX86 in XEN domU?? with kqemu? what is the difference between qemu and kqemu. Is Xen better or parallels better? Too bad I have this "waiting for root device" problem with my i965 sata controller not detected. anyways. with parallels I have to pay for it.. those are the 2 roadblocks from me making the switch. I would like to run osx86 (winxp, linux inside). I am currently running Linux Xen (winxp, linux inside) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anomaly256 Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 I got the xen hypervisor kernel running ok, but the dom0 kernel has an issue and forces a reboot. However, this all occurs waaay too fast to be able to read what the problem is, and since there's no serial ports on a macbook pro I have no way of trapping this output. Any suggestions on how i could capture it? Tried cameras but all my digicams are crappy 15fps, far too slow. When I'm around broadband next I'll grab netbsd and try it for the dom0. Don't know how this will go with hardware support for the mbp though Pretty sure I read somewhere that netbsd could be used for the dom0... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anomaly256 Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 (edited) Well, it turns out I had xen working all along! The issue I was having is something related to how the combination of grub, acpi, and xen bring the core duo's second core online in the macbook pro. Hitting enter at the grub boot menu causes the second core not to wake up and xen's dom0 kernel to panic. However, hitting the right arrow to select the boot option works and boots without issue! I now have a dom0 and domU kernel booted. Just need to set up the usbhid stuff to get the keyboard working in it and I'll try XP. Also, as I stated in my previous post, refit, bootcamp, and grub ARE NOT replacements for eachother. In fact they are COMPLEMENTARY in many ways. The amount of people saying 'bootcamp is better than grub and refit' is really alarming since grub RELIES on bootcamp, and rEFIt makes using bootcamp EVEN BETTER than bootcamp alone. Please, if you don't understand the place of these utilities, don't make comments like that. They can be very misleading to people trying to find factual information. So, just follow the XEN documentation as usual, except apply the proper macbook/macbook pro patches to the xen linux kernel source (to enable kb, etc), then hit RIGHT instead of ENTER at the boot menu and all should be good. Happy XENing! Edited December 27, 2006 by anomaly256 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kocoman Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Eric, I have not tried and will not (see below), but if you want to this could be way to go: 1. Get Linux to boot with EFI on the Mac 2. Make xen do the same 3. Get hands on a development version of MacOS X/Intel and follow maxxuss' explanations to get it running inside a domU (maxuss.hotbox.ru or something like that). This is the illegal part, by the way. I thought about that quite some time and decided not to try. If you have a Mac, you want MacOS X to use the builtin graphics and other hardware (which is impossible in a domU). Running OS X inside a domU is interesting for MacOS X hosting, but then you don't use Apple Hardware (because you need all your money for the lawyers fighting off Apples lawyers :-) ). If you have a Mac/Intel and want to run other OSses in parallel, I would give Qemu a try. If their acceleration module works on OS X /Intel, that is a path to test. You could run Windows and Linux/OpenSolaris/BSD with limited hardware access (you would not try gaming in a domU, would you?) in domUs and have MacOS X make use of the hardware. Dirk Has anyone tried this? 3. Get hands on a development version of MacOS X/Intel and follow maxxuss' explanations to get it running inside a domU (maxuss.hotbox.ru or something like that). This is the illegal part, by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embio Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 I'm not sure if this is the same on the Macbook Pro, but when I was using Fedora Core 6 on my Macbook, I needed to call up grub and then select the OS with the 'right' key instead of 'enter' - very strange. Without this it wouldnt be able to wake the second core. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sev7en Posted April 28, 2007 Share Posted April 28, 2007 I would point out a new looks-promising (opensource) virtualization tool: VirtualBox Innotek VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction; see "innotek" for more about our company. Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux and Macintosh hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD. VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while innotek ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria. On this site, you can find sources, binaries, documentation and other resources for VirtualBox. If you are interested in VirtualBox (both as a user, or possibly as a contributor), this website is for you. About the Virtualization VS Xen modes... When we describe VirtualBox as a "virtualization" product, we refer to "full virtualization", that is, the particular kind of virtualization that allows an unmodified operating system with all of its installed software to run in a special environment, on top of your existing operating system. This environment, called a "virtual machine", is created by the virtualization software by intercepting access to certain hardware components and certain features. The physical computer is then usually called the "host", while the virtual machine is often called a "guest". Most of the guest code runs unmodified, directly on the host computer, and the guest operating system "thinks" it's running on real machine. This approach, often called "native virtualization", is different from mere emulation. With that approach, as performed by programs such as BOCHS, guest code is not allowed to run directly on the host. Instead, every single machine instruction is translated ("emulated"). While emulators theoretically allow running code written for one type of hardware on completely different hardware (say, running 64-bit code on 32-bit hardware), they are typically quite slow. Virtualizers such as VirtualBox, on the other hand, can achieve near-native performance for the guest code, but can only run guest code that was written for the same target hardware (such as 32-bit Linux on a 32-bit Windows host). VirtualBox is also different from so-called "paravirtualization" solutions such as Xen, which require that the guest operating system be modified. There are several scenarios that make virtualization attractive: * Operating system support. With a virtualizer such as VirtualBox, one can run software written for one operating system on another (say, Windows software on Linux) without having to reboot. * Infrastructure consolidation. Since the full performance of today's computers is rarely needed full-time, instead of running many such physical computers, one can "pack" many virtual machines onto a few powerful hosts and balance the loads between them. This can save a lot of hardware costs: e.g. by consolidating many servers into a few. VirtualBox is unique on the virtualization market in that it also allows for consolidating clients onto just a few RDP servers, with full client USB support, while "thin clients" only need to display RDP data. * Testing and disaster recovery. Especially with the use of snapshots?, one can mess with a computing environment by running it as a virtual machine. If something goes wrong, one can easily switch back to a previous snapshot and avoid the need of frequent backups and restores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rugz Posted September 29, 2007 Share Posted September 29, 2007 hey guys... sorry i shouldn't place this request here.... But Please help me out.... i got a research assignment and MACBOOK virtualization is somethin really new to me... i dont knwo from where should i start...?? So please i'm requesting you to assists me.... i need certain information abut MACBOOK Virtualization.... Like MAC virtualization Technology.... how it works (architecture).... Windows on MAC... Parallel vs VMware Fusion.... So if anyone have got anything for above topics please let me know... Email: nihar7354@gmail.com Thanks a lot for your help Regards, NIHAR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts