From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19VZoS-0003dZ-Mp for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:41:32 -0400 Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19VZmC-000357-SP for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:39:14 -0400 Received: from host244-0.pool80116.interbusiness.it ([80.116.0.244] helo=dragas.dyndns.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19VZ3A-0000Pw-S5 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 11:52:41 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 17:52:42 +0200 From: Stefano Marinelli Message-ID: <20030626155242.GA20861@dragas.dyndns.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Subject: [Qemu-devel] Qemu is a wonderful (and presentation) Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Hello everybody, I'm a Computer Sciences student at Bologna's university (Italy) and I'm doing a research about Virtual Machines and their application. My final thesis will be about it. I've spent the last month performing tests with bochs and plex86 (the new one) but I've found out that bochs is too slow (even if almost complete) while plex has good ideas, but is still in really alpha stage. I've put an eye on qemu and found out it could be the best project to work with. I like the fact that it can be used to emulate x86 machines on non-x86 environments, especially because universities often have machines like PPC and Sparc. Anyway, I've performed some tests with the vl and created some new initrd images in order to see the state of compatibility. Being a so young project, I didn't expect too much, but I'm amazed. It's good, the user emulation performs well, the System emulator shows a good project idea, so I think it has the possibility to become a good alternative to bochs. One of the things I matter more is the "guest" portability: looking at the documentations, seems that one day it will be possible to run other non-Linux operating systems. My task is to prepare a bunch of virtual machine, where students (also normal users, but I'm talking about University research) will be able to experiment with different operating systems, both "secure" and "insecure" ones (like old Windows 98), without having to sacrifice a physical machine. Bochs could be a solution, but it's soooo slow. The idea beyond the dynamic translation is great. I had great expectations with bochs+plex86, but Kevin said that it will be the last thing to be done, even because the guest kernel has to be modified (and I don't like too much the host kernel driver to be installed) So the question is: will one day be possible to run other x86 operating systems (like the *BSD, Windows, BeOS and so on)? I hope so, anyway I will like to work on the project as final thesis. Ok, thanks for your attention (my email has been soo long) and good work :) -- ------------------------------------------------- Stefano Marinelli PGP key: send mail with "send pgp key" as subject -------------------------------------------------