On Feb 13, 9:44 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Linux Appliances Get New rPaths
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | The new rPath Appliance Platform expands on the rPath Appliance
> | Agent (RAA), which was rolled out last year. With RAA, users can
> | control setup, configuration and updates for the rPath-based
> | Linux appliances.
> `----
> http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3659456
Keep in mind that the Linux hardware appliance market, such as
routers, WiFi hubs, NAS and SAN storage controllers, and TiVo boxes,
has grown to huge numbers, probably over 300 million units sold in the
last year through LinkSys, NetGear, D-Link, Belkin, and about 10 other
companies, not to mention millions of TiVO and DVR boxes being sold or
rented.
These virtual appliances are even more interesting. When VMWare
introduced their VMWare Player last year, it created the possibility
of putting Linux VMs on windows machines and being able to switch
between different VMS as needed. The first one was a "Browser
Appliance" which ran Ubuntu Linux, Firefox, and Thunderbird to provide
hacker-proof browsing. Today, there are about 6,000 VMWare appliances
available.
Microsoft has VirtualPC, which it offers for free, but his not
encouraged the development of browsers based on either Linux or
Windows. Perhaps this is because one can convert a VirtualPC image to
a VMware image using VMWare Workstation.
VMWare Workstation also supports imports from several other formats
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_newguest_vm_importer_requirements.html
Including:
Virtual Machine and System Image - Input Requirements
# System images can be imported from Symantec LiveState Recovery.
# Virtual machines can be imported from Microsoft Virtual PC version 7
and later.
# Virtual machines can be imported from any version of Microsoft
Virtual Server.
# Virtual machines from Macintosh versions of Virtual PC are not
supported.
This is in addition to being able to build appliances from scratch
using VMWare Workstation and standard Linux installation media.
VMWare appliances are much easier to configure than Xen appliances,
and much easier to start up (like opening a word document, double-
click and you have Linux on your laptop).
Several commercial software vendors are now offering evaluation copies
of their products in VMWare appliances. This gives them the ability
to get their product in front of customers who don't have to spend
weeks trying to learn how to install software that might be installed
by consultants or a support team.
Of course, these VMWare appliances need to be running Linux or BSD to
permit unrestricted distribution. Microsoft would have fits if people
started running Windows "Appliances" on Linux machines that didn't
even have Windows OEM licenses.
There are even some VMWare appliance of Solaris 10.
No surprise then, that Linux is starting to pop up all over the
place. I can install a complex commercial application on Windows,
pray that there are no DLL conflicts, that some Windows update doesn't
blow me out of the water, and that when I need to remove it due to
lack of hard drive space, that it won't take out windows along with
the application.
OR
I can download player and install it, download the application, double-
click the appliance, and have the fully configured application on a
fully configured Linux system, ready for evaluation or work. Some of
these appliances are even designed for virtualized production
environments.
This has created a demand for 64 bit processors and > 2 Gig RAM, and
those who run several of these appliances generally prefer to put
Windows in an appliance and Make Linux the host OS which makes it
easier to manage the available memory efficiently. Since the
appliances convert all of the esoteric devices such as USB drives and
printers into virtual devices or SMB shares, and since the Linux
system can function as a firewall, it's even possible and practical to
use Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 as a guest VM Operating system.
This is often desirable since NT 4.0 can run quite nicely in 64 meg
and Windows 2000 can run nicely in 128 meg, while Vista seems to think
that anything less than 1 gigabyte is insufficient for real work.
Much af this is because Microsoft tried to bundle everything it could
into as few libraries as possible, making it impossible to even browse
a simple file without loading huge libraries into memory and hogging
the available RAM with methods and classes that only used less than 1%
of the time.
One of the things Windows advocates love to beat on Linux about is the
lack of context sensitive help built into the application. Most Linux
applications put the help function in a different application and
library set, so that it's only loaded when it's needed, and it's freed
up when it's no longer needed.
Linux also uses lots of smaller libraries, which means that only the
ones that are actually needed are loaded, and shared libraries can be
shared as needed and removed when no longer needed.
It's a bit like having fuel injectors in your car. You let in as much
air as you can, but when you are coasting or cruising, you can reduce
the fuel to almost nothing. This leaves you plenty of gas for when
you are going up that huge hill, or trying to pass that truck at 65
Mph.
Linux appliances have made it really easy for Windows XP users who are
curious about Linux, or have occaisionally used dual-boot Linux, to
have all of the capabilities of Linux, and all the capabilities of
Windows, on a single machine. Initially, they can start with the low
risk option of running Linux as a client on their XP machine. Later,
as they get more comfortable with Linux applications and capabilities,
they can put Linux in as the main operating system and boot Windows XP
as a guest virtual machine.
Microsoft decided that this would be unacceptable for Vista. The Home
version specifically forbids this type of use, and the Business
version is such a memory hog that it becomes impractical to use it as
a guest, even though such use is permitted.
Microsoft doesn't want to play nice, so they may have to just go home
and play with themselves - I mean by themselves.
Rex
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