What are the benefits of running a VM as main machine?

[tankman1989]

I am considering installing a server os, like Ubuntu 9.10 64bbit server and then install a virtual machine server/host. I would then do my Windows install in a VM. I can also install old OS's if so desired (but this isn't the main reason I'm considering this).

I'm thinking of doing this as a stability issue, backup and archival, virus/spyware protection (just roll back to a clone or snapshot).

I figure that with the speed of todays computers, most users don't fully utilize their systems potential, so running a Linux Server as a host OS won't be that noticable.

Would you ever consider this as a standard practice with the advancement of virtualizations?

If you do this, you can create an initial snapshot of the system or clone the system, then install all your software and updates. Take another snapshot or clone.
Create another virtual Hard drive for all of the Mydocs. This way backup is as simple as making a clone of that HD.

I'm sure there are a lot of other benefits (feel free to list some if you think of some) and probably some drawbacks, which I would greatly appreciate hearing.

So, what do you think of this idea and would you consider it as standard practice?

 

[coco3_man]

We used to have IBM boxes at work that ran Linux and contain 4 VM's of NT 4.0 for different server instances. They all had their own NIC as well. It was a special box just for that purpose.

If you need to run more than one server on one box, then your idea would work well, if only one, just install it and run normally. No need to get fancy just to be fancy.

Tom

 

[purple_minion]

For end users, not sure... probably bad. Would EVERYTHING work in the VM? USB? iTunes? Games? Linux support for graphics is primarily nvidia, and most VM's that I know don't like 3D acceleration. You could do a quick image once it's up, or setup something like Acronis with the hidden backup partition to do some snapshots.

 

[vdub12]

I use VM's all the time.

I run OpenSUSE on all my systems and one of them has a windows 2003 VM that I host my website on. The same system has a windows XP VM that I use as a test OS for infections. I also have another XP VM that I use as a business system and finally a Windows 7 VM so I can get some hours in on 7 so I can better support it. This is just on the system in my shop. The system in my office has an XP VM that I use for photoshop because crossover office does not run CS2 very well and that same VM I have iTunes on for my iPhone.

I don't know what I did before VM's. They have personalty changed my life.

 

[MobileTechie]

If you're going to do that then maybe you'd want to use a bare-metal hypervisor instead of a standard OS for the host.

 

[tankman1989]

If you're going to do that then maybe you'd want to use a bare-metal hypervisor instead of a standard OS for the host.

I thought about this but I never found any free apps for this. I only knew of virtualization software such as VMware, VBox and Xen, all of which required a base OS.

Are there any available hypervisor's?

 

[MobileTechie]

I think both Xen and KVM claim to be type 1 hypervisors but there is debate about both from what I've read.

Is VMWare ESXi not free?

 

[NeutronTech]

This is an interesting concept. I hadn't considered this before.

 

[vdub12]

You know another cool way to set this up would be have thin clients in place of computers in your house and use virtualbox to load the VM in to the thin client. The VM's on the server could be logged on to from multiple locations so you would have the same data and programs at each workstation. Its like the ultimate roaming profiles.