Comments on: VMware as operating system?

By: someonewhoreallyknows

someonewhoreallyknows — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:48:23 +0000

my point wasn’t to compare the two - my point was that it’s possible to boot one OS and load a completely different one, and have no architectural relationship between the booted OS and the running one.

By: glandium

glandium — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 21:07:22 +0000

someonewhoreallyknows: Linux and DOS are not the same beast. Come on, DOS didn’t even have memory management…

By: Planeta Debian » 451 CAOS Links - 2006.12.18

Planeta Debian » 451 CAOS Links - 2006.12.18 — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:03:52 +0000

[…] VMware as operating system?, Ian Murdock’s Weblog, Ian Murdock (Blog) […]

By: someonewhoreallyknows

someonewhoreallyknows — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 02:47:56 +0000

Glandium -

there’s a long history of booting a basic operating system to load a more sophisticated one. I may be dating myself, but Netware 3.X/4.x would boot DOS, and then load the netware kernel. That didn’t mean that netware was based on DOS. In fact, there was even a command that would remove DOS from memory after netware was started.

The VMKernel is NOT based on Linux, no matter what the service console may look like.

By: tecosystems / links for 2006-12-18

tecosystems / links for 2006-12-18 — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:34:16 +0000

[…] Ian Murdock’s Weblog » Blog Archive » VMware as operating system? “Finally, what about standards?…There are going to be multiple application platforms if history is any indication…so how do applications take advantage of the new platforms without the inevitable fragmentation?” - an excellent question (tags: Murdock VMWare standards virtualization operating systems) […]

By: glandium

glandium — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:21:52 +0000

rob: considering the vmkernel is started by an init script on the service console, and that what grub starts is the service console linux kernel…

By: rob

rob — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:28:15 +0000

Glandium - you suffer fromm a common mis conception - the VMkernel boots the ESX server - the system console is infact a special virtual machine brought up after VMkernel bot time.

VMkernel is not based upon linux, nor does it run on top of linux - in fact the complete opposite is true.

By: glandium

glandium — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:16:54 +0000

You’re both half right. The vmkernel runs on top of the linux kernel of the service console.

By: Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:38:39 +0000

John’s right. ESX Server runs on the bare metal. -ian

By: John Troyer

John Troyer — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:07:03 +0000

That’s actually not true. Although the service console, which manages interaction with the VMkernel, is built on Red Hat, the actual VMkernel hypervisor is not based on Linux.