Re: [Xen-users] old Athlon system on an x86_64

["Fajar A. Nugraha" <fajar@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:39 AM, Iain Morris <iain.t.morris@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Sorry if the answer to this question is obvious but,
>
> I have an ailing server running slackware with AMD Athlon processors.  I'd 
> like to virtualize it on a server running Xen, which is a Xeon x86_64 system. 
>  Is this even possible with the different architectures?  I don't believe the 
> kernel (2.4) is highly customized, but I'm not sure what other issues I might 
> run into.

If your system can run kernel 2.6 (just by changing the kernel), then
it should be easy. You can use PV domU.
However if it must run your current 2.4 kernel, your only option is to
use HVM domU, which needs special CPU support. Recent Xeons should
support it by default, but might need a BIOS setting to enable it.

A litlle warning though: using HVM domU without PV drivers is slow,
especially with disk/network I/O. RHEL3.9 has PV drivers (vnif and
vbd) for kernel 2.4, so you might want to look at that (possibly
porting to your slackware kernel, or simply use RHEL3 kernel on your
slackware).

If you still find the performance penalty unacceptable (because you're
unable to use PV drivers, or some other reason), you might have better
luck with other virtualization solution.

-- 
Fajar

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