Windows to Mac advice

cowasaki said:
Stuff

So I can join this argument from any side I like :LOL:
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madeinengland said:
Well unlike you, I don't actually stand with a stop watch timing it, I have a life.
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You're the one who brought it up... LOL.. bragging about your 2 minute boot time.. not realising it was crap. No one mentioned it until you piped up, and now you're accusing me of obsessing about it?


You're funny.
 
arad85 said:
BTW: multi-boot machines are soooo last year. VM servers with h/w pass through are where it's at these days (not tried passing through a graphics card yet but...) Several machines all in one at the same time ;)
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Virtualisation of operating systems is not without its own problems, especially when it comes to handling processor exceptions / faults.

We often tell people not to use our software in VMs because the "guest" operating system often simply does not perform like it does when run natively. Debugging through code to find the problem is poorly implemented virtualisation layer is no fun at all and a complete waste of time.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Virtualisation of operating systems is not without its own problems, especially when it comes to handling processor exceptions / faults.

We often tell people not to use our software in VMs because the "guest" operating system often simply does not perform like it does when run natively. Debugging through code to find the problem is poorly implemented virtualisation layer is no fun at all and a complete waste of time.
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+1

And all but useless for applications like serous video editing, animation or running a digital audio workstation.
 
We've not had too much bother with out hyper v "boxes" (typically 2008 with SQL/exchange/bes/wsus/IBM websphere etc etc) but then the hosts arent shy on spec.

Although I did have a complete pain in the arse networking fault on one of our remote vm yesterday. Was down to a crappy Broadcom nic/driver though. Good old intel nic to the rescue..
 
Yup, gotta choose your hardware correctly (of the two machines I run hypervisors on, only one does proper pass through - the other isn't capable).

Two points of order: firstly, you virtualise the hardware, not the OS :p and secondly, I'm talking about type 1 hypervisors - where the hypervisor runs directly on the bare metal, not something like VirtualBox which runs as a program within the host OS (type 2 hypervisor). If you set it up right, and pass through the hardware to the OS, there is very little performance loss. As I said, I've not tried passthrough with a graphics card - so have no idea how well it would perform, but may well try and look for hardware capable of supporting it next time I upgrade and try it anyway.
 
Wanting to upgrade my WS2012 home server and really starting to wish I had stuck it on Hyper-V instead of bare metal :/
 
I don't recall the OP asking about virtualisation and multiple OSes - the conversation is way off topic and aught to be in its own thread.
 
PJ S said:
I don't recall the OP asking about virtualisation and multiple OSes - the conversation is way off topic and aught to be in its own thread.
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yeah - type 1 vitualisation is obviously the first thing that will spring to mind of most people buying PCs :LOL:

As a true  :love: fanboy :nuts: I can proclaim that is easier to just get one mactop with a single OS that does everything properly from the start. I feel so proud now :D:LOL:
 
daugirdas said:
As a true  :love: fanboy :nuts: I can proclaim that is easier to just get one mactop with a single OS that does everything properly from the start. I feel so proud now :D:LOL:
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Wow, your mactop runs your complete network firewall/intrusion detection system (FreBSD based), your IP-PBX (CentOS based), your partners accounting system (Debian - but could be anything as it's LAMP based), a couple of development machines requiring different installs of operating systems (Fedora Core based - Macs aren't even supported as a development environment BTW) - and it does this whilst your workstation is turned off? I'm truly impressed and must rush and buy myself a mactop immediately... :p ;)
 
PJ S said:
I don't recall the OP asking about virtualisation and multiple OSes - the conversation is way off topic and aught to be in its own thread.
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Thank you Mr. Forum Policeman!

I wasn't aware there is a forum rule that says we have to stay on topic...

Darren is quite capable of slapping wrists when needed ;)
 
arad85 said:
Wow, your mactop runs your complete network firewall/intrusion detection system (FreBSD based), your IP-PBX (CentOS based), your partners accounting system (Debian - but could be anything as it's LAMP based), a couple of development machines requiring different installs of operating systems (Fedora Core based - Macs aren't even supported as a development environment BTW) - and it does this whilst your workstation is turned off? I'm truly impressed and must rush and buy myself a mactop immediately... :p ;)
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Holly cow! Are we kitting out SME server or a "normal" laptop / workstation? How many people do need IP-PBX at home, and why not just use a decent router as firewall, in addition to the OS fw? Let's get back to the Earth...

Btw. That thing must be properly power hungry. A big electricity bill every month
 
arad85 said:
Yup, gotta choose your hardware correctly (of the two machines I run hypervisors on, only one does proper pass through - the other isn't capable).

Two points of order: firstly, you virtualise the hardware, not the OS :p and secondly, I'm talking about type 1 hypervisors - where the hypervisor runs directly on the bare metal, not something like VirtualBox which runs as a program within the host OS (type 2 hypervisor). If you set it up right, and pass through the hardware to the OS, there is very little performance loss. As I said, I've not tried passthrough with a graphics card - so have no idea how well it would perform, but may well try and look for hardware capable of supporting it next time I upgrade and try it anyway.
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It's actually VirtualBox on machines that natively support virtualisation in the processor (Intel VT-x extensions) that causes us the most problems. My boggo Dell Vostro 200 development machine in the office doesn't support it as the core2duo processor it's fitted with doesn't have the extensions, and it has no problems running our stuff inside a VM.

The rather nicer Dual quad core E5420 Xeon Dell Precision I have as my second machine at home has the BIOS option to enable the VT-x extensions. When I turn them on, our software has trouble when run inside VirtualBox as exceptions occasionally never make it from the processor to our exception handler, seemingly at random.

Virtualisation is a lot better now than when we started running into problems with it years ago, as it was basically done by an emulator back then. Since the stuff I do is totally CPU bound, running in an emulator killed it. Code that took 1-2 seconds natively would take 15 minutes plus in a VM.
 
daugirdas said:
Holly cow! Are we kitting out SME server or a "normal" laptop / workstation?
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Whoah there cowboy... Let's get back to why VMs reared their head here in the first place - I replied with a 1-liner to Darrens mention of the fact he was building a machine that would be quad boot and I just said that VMs were the way to go - as a 1 liner! You keep telling me it isn't needed, I'm just telling you why I have one. Just because you don't need one doesn't mean others won't find it useful.

daugirdas said:
How many people do need IP-PBX at home
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NEED - not many, but it was something I wanted to try as I work from home and I kept tying up the one BT line on conference calls. Now the whole phone system here is run off a PBX - we have 3 phone lines in (2 IP based) and as many as we want out for no extra cost. My conference calls are handled through the IP network leaving the "real" line open for others to call and when I'm away from home I even get e-mailed if anyone leaves us a message - together with the message as an .mp3 attachment. That's kinda cool....

daugirdas said:
and why not just use a decent router as firewall,
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Because the firewall I run does intrusion detection/protection (snort), IP blocking (keep out the Russian Business Network et al. - da!), runs inter site OpenVPN (Ms arad85 has a shop and that is an extension of our network - she can access all the machines here from her shop directly), VPN for dialing in when I'm away, manages and logs the quality of my ISP connection over time with RRDgraphs as well as traffic to/from machines in addition to running standard router functions (DNS/DHCP/port forwarding etc...) and can do all of that whilst processing packets running at 60Mbits in and 16Mbits out. There isn't enough CPU in consumer grade routers to do half of that, let alone having decent software support for it (yes, I'm aware of DD-WRT and Tomato).

daugirdas said:
Let's get back to the Earth...
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Yup. But you have to realise that your part of the Earth looks different to other peoples ;)

daugirdas said:
Btw. That thing must be properly power hungry. A big electricity bill every month
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It's quite cheap to run actually. Platinum certified passive PSU, i5-3470S low power CPU so minimises power when not pushed and an SSD. That lot is running 5 machines at the moment (so actually, it is saving me money, both on the 5 physical machines as well as the electricity they would consume). In fact, it is completely silent (no moving parts in the box at all - even the heatsink is passive) and sits behind one of the sofas in the living room.

But thank you for being concerned by the size of my electricity bill ;)
 
onomatopoeia said:
It's actually VirtualBox on machines that natively support virtualisation in the processor (Intel VT-x extensions) that causes us the most problems.
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I'm running ESXi here. Seems to run everything I've thrown at it and apart from needing a few patches when I first built the system. I've also not tried hardware passthrough in anger, but this is what I get on my VT-d (direct I/O) enabled mobo (Asrock Fatal1ty Z77 m-ATX):

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Basically, I can select any of those and I can attach them direct to a VM and it will appear natively (direct access to the PCI-e bus registers) within the machine.

Don't think I'd try and virtualise hardware through a type 2 hypervisor though. When I did run some machines through VirtualBox, they were bog-standard Linux installs that just provided a Linux command line. There's far too much between you and the hardware for efficient use of it, let alone for any idiosyncrasies to rear their head....
 
^^now you guys have completely lost me - I sort of understood VM then it all went a bit fuzzy :D
 
I think one interesting thing thats come out of this thread - its very much about preferences and thats it really. Those that have time/interest/knowledge to build a very fast, very reliable machine prefer PC. Those mere mortals who don't (like me) are much more lead by OS and to an extent reliability of OTS packages.
 
neil_g said:
Do you have nothing constructive to add at all?
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I've offered my opinion on the OP's query.

With everyone involved in the off-topic lovefest of virtualisations, bumming and blowing about their set-up and achievements, the above reply was rather apt and could be construed as constructive by some.
Others might just simply appreciate the humour, given the context in which it has been used.
 
Dont want to steal anyones thunder...But i have just changed last week from windows to imac...!! all i can say is i wish i had done it ages ago...and you can run windows on mac now also....(if this has been mentioned in other posts!! sorry but i didnt read them all )..
Good luck.....
 
PJ S said:
I've offered my opinion on the OP's query.

With everyone involved in the off-topic lovefest of virtualisations, bumming and blowing about their set-up and achievements, the above reply was rather apt and could be construed as constructive by some.
Others might just simply appreciate the humour, given the context in which it has been used.
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if you don't like it you don't have to comment. comes across as trolling.
 
neil_g said:
if you don't like it you don't have to comment. comes across as trolling.
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On that note, I shall leave you ladies to continue thrashing out whose virtual raspberries & pies taste nicest. :wave:
 
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