Virtual machine setup recommendations

[dragonbite]

I just got an old computer (Dual Core, up to 8 GB of RAM) and am thinking of using it as a replacement for the family computer. Then a co-worker got me thinking. What about virtualizaing?

If I put a barebone host with virtualization software on top of it, could I have it so when the family boots up the computer it boots up the host and then immediately (hopefully without notice) boot into a specified virtual machine running the desktop system?

I was thinking of having it run a Linux distribution, but would love to be able to run Windows 7 if I so choose sometime later.

Some of the reasoning if for

• Being able to snapshot and store (backup) the image onto a networked hard drive
• Enable easily multi-booting without having to worry about GRUB
• Enable running a headless server-orientated VM such as a web server, automatically in the background
• Make upgrading safer by being able to work out the kinks in a second VM before moving everybody over (and finding out it doesn't work!)

I don't know if the above is very feasible.

Would it be better to run it on a barebone systems such as VMWare ESXi or a Linux distro?
Would it be better to, if on a Linux distro, run VMWare, VirtualBox or KVM?
Would any enable hardware acceleration? Games will be played on it, but not the resource-intensive ones (unless you count Super Tux Kart, Neverball and the like)

[Evil_Bert]

I can't answer all your questions, but I think in general you can achieve most if not all of what you want.

I run several VMs in VirtualBox on Scientific Linux - sometimes up to 3 at a time - that's on a 3.6GHz quad-core, though. A recent dual-core ought to be able to run a single VM alright.

Booting automagically should be easy - configure for automatic (Linux) user login and have, say, VirtualBox start via your start-up applications with whatever VM you select (e.g. VBoxManage startvm "FamilyMachine").

If your VM defaults to fullscreen (I know VirtualBox can be so configured) then you basically lead the user straight into the VM as the system to use ... just with a very long boot-up time.

I use a VM fullscreen for work, though with multiple workspaces it's easy to switch tasks and do something on the Host (Linux) OS if I need to.

Your headless server VM could be stripped down (perhaps you could choose a distro that runs entirely in RAM to speed things up). Still, on an average dual-core, running 2 VMs simultaneously might be too demanding for smooth and responsive performance.

You can revert to snapshot (I think that can be set as a default for any particular VM, at least in VirtualBox) so that the VM will re-start in a pristine state ... but where would you store the data in that case? The headless server? It might be simpler to set up a simple data partition and point your VM's shared folder at that partition (Edit: which could just as easily be an external HDD). Saving data in the VM is easy but counter-productive, since you negate some of the benefit of being able to "revert to snapshot".

Upgrades are dead easy and you can clone your VM beforehand to practise an upgrade, or simply build a replacement VM at your leisure then switch over almost invisibly at your convenience. If anything goes wrong, just revert to snapshot and start again. Saving snapshots is also easy, whether saving the native folders containing the virtual machine(s) or exporting to some portable format first.

On a Linux distro, I prefer VirtualBox. I played around a bit with KVM and chose VBox, but I haven't used VMWare. If using a bare-metal approach, I think you would lose some flexibility, but then I'm no expert in bare-metal hypervisors.

Games may be your downfall. I've played with VirtualBox's 3D/2D-video acceleration and found it problematic. Others may have had better luck.

Some of what you want could be achieved simply using multiple partitions - you can build a new system on a spare partition and switch to it almost invisibly when ready with a simple Grub edit. Again, segregate data in a separate partition for best results.

HTH