Running X on XenServer Host
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If you are happy with end users on Linux on Xen, you'd love just regular Linux Mint as is.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
My comments weren't about Xen, it was about a hypervisor, any hypervisor that could snap the whole system regularly to give a full point in time restore with little to no effort on the part of the user.
Why a hypervisor? Snapping is a storage feature, not a virtualization feature.
I suppose because I've never seen it outside of a virtualization situation.
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If I'm going to move users to linux, I'd skip it and go directly to chromebooks, assuming they didn't have any specific apps needs.
But then you already suggested that
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I'm considering Windows based options that allow for easier, better recovery when they get into trouble.. I'm probably just reaching... ending up at a moot point.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm considering Windows based options that allow for easier, better recovery when they get into trouble.. I'm probably just reaching... ending up at a moot point.
Xen can't do that. The Dom0 is Linux or NetBSD only today. The Dom0 has to be fully paravirtualized and Windows does not support that. So anything along this line would be purely Linux or UNIX based.
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@Dashrender said:
I suppose because I've never seen it outside of a virtualization situation.
It's a pretty universal feature and has been for decades. Virtualization solutions (including ESXi up through 4.x) used existing operating system snapshot capabilities in their storage layer to handle this, it's not part of the virtualization itself.
In Linux this is delivered via LVM, ZFS or BtrFS, on FreeBSD and Solaris through an LVM or ZFS, on AIX through LVM, HP-UX via VxFS, on Windows through VSS, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
If I'm going to move users to linux, I'd skip it and go directly to chromebooks, assuming they didn't have any specific apps needs.
But then you already suggested that
But if you did have app needs, Linux Mint offers a pretty compelling end user experience.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Why use Xen for home users? Why not just run Linux directly and snap it? What benefit is Xen delivering for a normal end user desktop? What VMs will they be running?
I converted my girlfriends mothers' laptop over to Linux Mint and she hated it. She much preferred her Malware laced windows OS that constantly hung. Required a hard reset constantly, and had tons of pop ups.
So I just put the original drive back in and handed it back to her. One of the arguments was "What if I need to get into the system and do stuff?"
... Stuff like what? Install malware? This is fully loaded, ready to go and has much less malware out there trying to get onto it. To top it all this laptop is only used for is browsing the web and hooking up to an HDMI TV.
Virtualized for consumer desktops doesn't make much sense at all. Maybe if Mom or Dad where there managing the VM's.
Just push Linux to them.
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Pushing someone from Windows to Linux is like pushing someone from Windows to Mac those who don't want to go generally end up pissed and frustrated and demand to go back.
Is linux better than it was, sure, is it as good for non techies as Windows, possible I suppose as I haven't installed Mint in ... ever.
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@Dashrender said:
Is linux better than it was, sure, is it as good for non techies as Windows, possible I suppose as I haven't installed Mint in ... ever.
I've tried testing this before and I've never seen any non-techie feel that Windows was better. Literally, never. I've only seen experienced Windows users that did not want to switch. Starting from scratch, Linux has always been found to be easier in the few "greenfield" tests that I've ever seen.
