Microsoft Submits Linux Kernel Patches For a 'Complete Virtualization Stack' With Linux and Hyper-V (theregister.com) 105
Microsoft has submitted a series of patches to the Linux kernel with its aim being "to create a complete virtualization stack with Linux and Microsoft Hypervisor." The Register reports: The patches are designated "RFC" (Request for comments) and are a minimal implementation presented for discussion. The key change is that with the patched kernel, Linux will run as the Hyper-V root partition. In the Hyper-V architecture, the root partition has direct access to hardware and creates child partitions for the VMs it hosts. "Just think of it like Xen's Dom0," said Microsoft principal software engineer Wei Liu. Hyper-V's architecture is more similar to Xen than it is to KVM or to VMware's ESXi, and Liu acknowledged that "we drew inspiration from the Xen code in Linux," specifically for code handing interrupts. Until now, the Hyper-V root partition had to run Windows.
Microsoft has also ported Intel's open-source Cloud Hypervisor, a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) written in Rust that normally runs on KVM, the hypervisor that is built into the Linux kernel. Cloud Hypervisor itself is currently in "very early pre-alpha stage." Even when Linux is the root partition, it will still run on top of Microsoft's hypervisor, a thin layer running with ring -1 privileges. It will no longer be necessary to run Windows on that hypervisor, though, enabling Microsoft to call the new arrangement "a complete virtualization stack with Linux."
Microsoft has also ported Intel's open-source Cloud Hypervisor, a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) written in Rust that normally runs on KVM, the hypervisor that is built into the Linux kernel. Cloud Hypervisor itself is currently in "very early pre-alpha stage." Even when Linux is the root partition, it will still run on top of Microsoft's hypervisor, a thin layer running with ring -1 privileges. It will no longer be necessary to run Windows on that hypervisor, though, enabling Microsoft to call the new arrangement "a complete virtualization stack with Linux."
I still don't like the new Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I run Linux on all of my personal machines, as I always have. I don't really care for today's Microsoft, just as I didn't care for 25 years and multiple CEOs ago Microsoft.
Work being work, I have had to spend a few days on the Microsoft campus talking to their engineers. That experience was different than I expected.
You can say Microsoft is still evil and I won't argue with you. This story is about Microsoft getting rid of Windows in their VM stack, replacing Windows with Linux. They are definitely different from 25 years ago. You want to say they are evil, fine - and clearly they are a DIFFERENT evil than when Gates or Balmer were running the company.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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* by useing this patch all Linux severs must be licensed per host core for each host in the cluster under windows sever rules.
Re:I still don't like the new Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Incorrect,
MSFT have transformed from a desktop company to a cloud company. The desktop is now telemetry, add and OEM sales for them. It is still a large part of the organization, but no where near as fragile a personality as it used to be. This is similar to the Amazon Retail/Ec2 relationship. One will eventually overtake the other and when making big bets... you bet on the future.
They have spent quite a bit getting into the cloud architecture (a lot compared to most of the organizations around) and they really don't care about windows anymore. That isn't their lock in these days and it is the same lock in that Amazon ran with several years ago.
There is a reason I can run a bash shell with a debian environment on windows 10 and it isn't because they particularly care about desktop lock in.
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If so - and they really want to demonstrate good will, they should contribute to Linux desktop technologies. Some areas where they could do some real good:
1. Codecs
2. Fonts
3. Contribute to WINE. Make it easy to target Linux, Mac and Android systems with existing Win32/64 code. This could be a win-win for Microsoft, in that it would make Win32 coding less of a dead-end, acknowledging that cross-platform support (however it's achieved) is the highest priority these days. Most of that code would end up bei
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Microsoft has their bread buttered differently. In the past, it was their IP versus F/OSS. Now, they don't care what people run, provided it runs on Azure. Because of this, MS can throw resources at Linux, because if they can get the DevOps houses to use them as opposed to AWS, they will bring in a lot of income.
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I fully agree with your statement but it's worth noting that the only reason they're a different kind of evil is because they don't have nearly as much leverage due to the way they bungled mobile and cloud computing. If Microsoft had the same level of dominance in those industries that they had in desktop OSes during the 90s, they would be the same kind of evil, working day and night on building a bigger dick to fuck
The Admiral says: (Score:1)
"It's a trap!"
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I suspect you're the example of a person who has placed some amount of self worth or identity into a belief that may well have been more true than not at some point - about something most people didn't know or appreciate at the level you did. However, this came at the cost of being unable to accomadate change and nuance.
Because it's laughable on the face of it that nothing has changed over 30+ at Microsoft. I don't care if it's their more or less evil, when, why, etc - you're into a faith based argument wit
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I take it you're not familiar with Windows 10's spyware-as-an-operating-system approach and the death of caring at all about consumers since its just their data they want now; they're no longer customers. This is worse than Facebook with a price tag attached. Refining evil business practices doesn't some how make them less evil.
The only difference is the race to the bottom has several competitors now with Google added to Apple. I'm sure they've seen the spying Google has done with linux and are absolutel
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I take it you're not familiar with Windows 10's spyware-as-an-operating-system approach and the death of caring at all about consumers since its just their data they want now; they're no longer customers.
I take it you're incapable of having a nuanced argument and must re-frame everything using hyperbole to sound worse than it really is.
You are indeed a customer of Microsoft's when you use Windows 10.
Like it or not, practically every fucking thing you do on a computer has telemetry collected by one party or another.
Some people sell it, some really are using it to improve service. Anyone who has to report to a manager knows they have huge raging boners when it comes to telemetry data. It's not for spying,
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When you cannot reasonably attack the message, attack the messenger. This is indeed worse than Reddit.
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If you could read, you would have noticed that the attacks on the messenger were directly related to the dismantling of your stupid message, making them accessories to the argument instead of the point.
Go back to school, shitstain.
Re:We're clearly witnessing the "extend" phase... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Microsoft's dominance is eroding. If they still called all the shots like they used to, they'd still be trying to make sure anything they do is incompatible with Linux. They're not so much extending here, as trying to ensure their stuff remains relevant.
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Not so sure these days.
First they'd get hauled up for being a monopoly (uncomfortable).
Second, they'd be the sole focus of a lot of very bright people of negotiable virtue who would just love to make money from the flaws. One target is easier than an ecosystem.
There's a lot of benefit to interoperability in a heterogenous environment, both from optimisation and security, if done right. I think Microsoft learned that a long time ago.
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First they'd get hauled up for being a monopoly (uncomfortable).
No they wouldn't. Because having a monopoly is not illegal. Otherwise any company that creates a new class of products would be automatically do something illegal.
What's illegal is abusing a monopoly.
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Attempting to distinguish a competing product wouldn't be abuse?
Re: We're clearly witnessing the "extend" phase... (Score:1)
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They view Azure as their main growth opportunity. Their Windows monopoly is as entrenched as ever, but it's bringing in less and less revenue, as people hold on to computers longer - and as alternatives like ChromeOS become viable for more and more use cases. So they have a big stake in server-side Linux, which probably accounts for 80% of the part of Azure that isn't Office 365. But desktop Linux is still in their sights to keep down.
WSL is mainly an attempt to keep web developers from switching to desk
Re:We're clearly witnessing the "extend" phase... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing: they've been trying to do that for decades when they were top dog and it hasn't worked. Now they're living on the legacy of their former monopoly, and trying to play nice with open source and Linux so people don't ditch them too fast.
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More like they're trying to become open source and Linux. Look at Azure and their acquisition of GitHub. They have realized that managing a crummy operating system is a waste of time/money when they can just piggyback off the OSS community. They've pivoted to hardware—Surface & cloud—because it's clear that operating systems are no longer the type of thing people pay for. By moving Office to the cloud they've conceded the importance of a Windows license, and by releasing an Android phone/tab
I cannot wait for them to be sued for GPL violatio (Score:2)
Except, you know, the GPL lawsuits have been kind of weak [fsfe.org] and I'm sure they know that with their legion of lawyers.
Re:I cannot wait for them to be sued for GPL viola (Score:4, Informative)
Except, you know, the GPL lawsuits have been kind of weak [fsfe.org] and I'm sure they know that with their legion of lawyers.
Really? Every single case around the world has held the GPL up.
The mark of a strong licence isn't large numbers of public lawsuits. It is the fact that companies comply or settle to avoid an inevitable loss in a public trial.
Re:We're clearly witnessing the "extend" phase... (Score:5, Informative)
But you have to admit, if they could extinguish Linux and become the sole operating system again, they would.
Microsoft doesn't make (much) money from Windows. That ship sailed long ago. The bulk of their revenue comes from cloud and business processes [investopedia.com]. And considering how much of Azure either runs on Linux or runs Linux [build5nines.com], Windows is definitely a smaller focus for them now.
Which, considering just how bad recent Windows releases have been, makes sense as all the really smart people are working on Azure now.
Re:We're clearly witnessing the "extend" phase... (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft doesn't make (much) money from Windows
Well that's a lie, or at least a misunderstanding. Here's their financial report for 2019 [microsoft.com], from which I will quote:
"Windows revenue increased $877 million or 4%, driven by growth in Windows Commercial and Windows OEM,"
Windows might not be the majority of Microsoft's revenue, but it's a major source of income.
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Windows revenue is huge - but it's not growing. From the public company point of view, that renders it unimportant. They certainly need Windows revenue to not shrink, but their main focus is going to be on other areas that generate growth.
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While they do host more Linux VMs than Windows VMs, Azure runs Hyper-V and practically all of their services (CosmoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL) on Windows hosts.
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They're not. Windows Core and now Hyper-V Server are what they use. Not Linux.
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Their OS isn't their primary source of income anymore.
If they have reason to suspect that the existence of Linux causes an increase of utilization of their cloud services (it does) then they're going to focus on making more interoperability there. That's just sound business.
No different than Amazon trying to make sure that Windows can run on AWS.
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No you're not. MS lacks both the market conditions, and the leadership to engage in EEE in *any* of their current market segments. To claim otherwise is either to not understand what EEE was, or how EEE works.
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On the other hand, I could get all the good parts of this without involving Microsoft at all.
That is the tiny detail MS wants you to overlook....
Microsoft has it's uses (Score:2)
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specifically code monkeys. Their languages include ton of tools that make it easy for amateurs to build Enterprise grade apps without understanding all the moving parts. This saves companies billions in programmer wages because, well, they can hire cheap programmers.
So that is where all those crappy, insecure applications come from. You only get security if you know what you are doing.
Linus (Score:1)
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So finally MS gets rid of windows? (Score:2)
A move long overdue. Although nothing really good has ever been produced by MS and they are sneaky, honor-less, underhanded bastards. So I remain quite suspicious about the long term benefits of this.
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Shops that use an ass-ton of virtualization (like my own) for them or their clients (Our primary Hyper-V users are clients- we use Citrix internally) are going to give Hyper-V as a type-1 hypervisor a second look if we can manage it from Linux instead of using Windows Server.
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I suppose what I'm missing what is particularly attractive about Hyper-V versus either the similarly designed Xen or a KVM strategy if using Linux.
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I suppose what I'm missing what is particularly attractive about Hyper-V versus either the similarly designed Xen or a KVM strategy if using Linux.
Indeed. They are late to the game. I would be surprised if they have any technological advantages. And it is MS, so the tech is not going to be very good, even if based on Linux.
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They're all the same to me (Though KVM really is a different kind of product all together- it's not a bare-metal (Type 1) hypervisor)
Hyper-V, Xen, ESXi... all just different products doing the same shit.
Why do some of my customers want their stuff running on Hyper-V? Honestly- I don't have any damn idea.
I mean it has some pretty great packaged clustering options that integrate will with clustered Windows services, but I imagine those are all operating at the Windows Server primary partition leve
Improvement? (Score:2)
Re:Improvement? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Improvement? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I see is developers following the open source process. Most companies who write code for the Linux kernel do so for their own benefit.
There's probably no value for anyone but Microsoft at this stage. If they never distribute the binaries outside of their own Azure datacentres, they wouldn't even have an obligation under the GPL to distribute the source code.
We don't know Microsoft's intentions for this code. It might be just an experiment that never goes into production. It's probably an effort to increase reliability of their Azure servers while decreasing the cost of maintaining hardware drivers.
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I agree this is likely a cost thing. It takes a huge amount of effort to maintain all the different pieces, and there is exponentially more code to keep track of these days. It's probably an attempt to negate costs by shoveling some of it over to OSS that will see bug fixes - whereas their own work product not so much.
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Just because some code becomes part of the Linux kernel doesn't mean that said code will be magically maintained by $someone_else. Microsoft will still need to maintain their own code or it will be removed at some point in the future if it doesn't play nice with other new features introduced into the kernel.
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While that is true, you are missing the point. They have written a relatively small amount of code to interface their hypervisor with the Linux kernel in the root partition. Using the Linux kernel in their Dom0 equivalent means they can rely on a vast number of hardware drivers in the Linux kernel that are maintained by $someone_else. It's a net benefit.
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That is not necessarily why companies upstream code that addresses mostly or exclusively their own products. Sure they could maintain their own out-of-tree repositories... but then they would have to update the code for any architectural and API changes that get introduced into the kernel. Once they manage to get their code to the mainline tree, any future changes will have to account for that code so that it does not stop to build or work.
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Installing Linux takes fraction of the time a Windows server install takes. Time saved in deployment is important when you have a high number of servers to deploy.
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Installing Linux takes fraction of the time a Windows server install takes.
I don't know how much I agree with that... They're close.
Biggest advantage I see is never having to use that fucking Hyper-V Manager again.
With Linux as a host, means linux tools will be available for configuring the hypervisor.
That's what I look forward to. But then again- I manage thousands of virts.
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It's probably an effort to increase reliability of their Azure servers
I manage a good amount of Linux (mostly Centos 5/6/7) and Windows (Mostly Server 2003, but a significant amount of 2018+)
There isn't any noticeable difference in "reliability" between the 2 classes.
Only difference that has stuck out to me in the last decade and change, is that Linux servers are vastly more manageable.
while decreasing the cost of maintaining hardware drivers.
OK- this belies a fundamental lack of understanding about what a type-1 hypervisor is.
You should read up and come back, so you can at least formulate some opinions that are informed instead
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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linux currently has no issues with running Windows VMs in a slim hypervisor
I take it you've never virtualised. I think there's one thing that's 100% certain is that ${GUEST_OS} always has issues with ${HYPERVISOR} regardless of which products you chose to assign either variables to.
Virtualisation is not a done concept. It's not "finished". It's ever evolving, ever changing, with new capabilities and incompatibilities continuously being resolved.
you can compile your own kernel (Score:2)
you can compile your own kernel
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That's not clear. I'd be very careful about patent licensing problems, etc. including third party patents that MS has the right to use as they want, but which others don't have the same right to use/distribute.
So it may change things a LOT via a submarine attack.
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They've attacked companies in the past by developing something, patenting it, and then selling the patent to another company with the continued right to use and distribute it. It's not really a submarine patent in the traditional sense. They can freely use the patented method in their own code, and freely distribute that code...but they didn't keep the right to sublicense it.
I'd be VERY careful.
Any benefit to Linux or FOSS? (Score:3)
What should really be considered here is if there is any benefit to Linux or FOSS by adding these patches. My understanding is that the Hyper-V Hypervisor is closed source. If they mainline these patches Microsoft will be the only one's benefiting. The closed source nature of the hypervisor could also limit the ability to secure the kernel interface.
I see no reason to allow patches that only benefit a single party.
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I see no reason to allow patches that only benefit a single party.
You may as well strip a large portion of the kernel out then. A metric fuckton of code in the kernel only benefits users of a single party that doesn't have their entire product stack open source.
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What should really be considered here is if there is any benefit to Linux or FOSS by adding these patches.
I'm sure there are plenty of Hyper-V users out there who would rather the primary partition be Linux instead of Windows. (Myself for one)
My understanding is that the Hyper-V Hypervisor is closed source.
Most machine architectures are "closed source"
Think of a hypervisor as a modified machine architecture.
If they mainline these patches Microsoft will be the only one's benefiting.
That's like saying an ACPI quirk code-around for Phoenix BIOS only benefits Phoenix.
Have you forgotten that there are... users?
The closed source nature of the hypervisor could also limit the ability to secure the kernel interface.
Only in the instance of insecurity in the hypervisor itself- otherwise, the Linux portion of the code is all open-source, and will be maintaine
Fuck That. Fix Hyper-V (Score:2)
There are many OSes and especially older things like old Linux installs that won't run on Hyper-V. They need special kernel treatment or network adapters that Hyper-V doesn't provide.
But, all of these same VMs that won't run on Hyper-V will run on any version of ESXi, KVM, Xen, BHyve, openBox
Microsoft need to fix Hyper-V for kernel issues, and provide a virtual Intel 1Gb NIC. They seem to be focused on extending Linux to run on Hyper-V and forgetting that it is supposed to be hardware virtualization. If it
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Hyper-V is broken, and it always has been. But it's obvious that Microsoft doesn't really care about it anymore. They want you to run your stuff on Azure.
Which is fine. If you are serious about running VMs on your own hardware, you should be using vSphere anyway. There really is no substitute for it in the enterprise. *Everything* works with vSphere, the management tools are the best, and there is an entire third-party industry built around supporting/extending vSphere.
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But it's obvious that Microsoft doesn't really care about it anymore. They want you to run your stuff on Azure.
I wouldn't say that. They backported the same redesigned and rewritten Hyper-V that Azure uses to Windows 10 and Windows Server.
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They haven't yet bothered to provide accelerated 2D VGA graphics after all these years and they expect us to seriously consider Hyper-V?
Re: Fuck That. Fix Hyper-V (Score:2)
2d vga graphics?!! Hold on, I have 1993 on the other line...
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You see, I have to work with Hyper-V, Citrix, and ESXi on a daily basis due to being responsible for solutions built by customers. High-paying customers. Customers paying their hypervisor providers a shit ton of money too.
If you asked me "What could I do to make Hyper-V better?"
The first first thing I would say would be: "Give me a fucking console."
If you wanted to one-up my request- give me a Linux primary partition.
This is smart. It's j
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There are many OSes and especially older things like old Linux installs that won't run on Hyper-V. They need special kernel treatment or network adapters that Hyper-V doesn't provide.
Oh boy. I can see we're wading into a rather deep pool of ignorance, here.
But, all of these same VMs that won't run on Hyper-V will run on any version of ESXi, KVM, Xen, BHyve, openBox
Depends. Hypervisors that fully support paravirt-ops tend to do well with Linux guest compatibility. Otherwise, whatever free BIOS they're using is the big determining factor, and it's a mine-field.
Overall- your statement is just false, though.
There's a lot more to virtualization than hardware virtualization (these days, anyway)
It doesn't work like bochs or old VMWare anymore. Everything deals with some level of paravirtualization.
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As for the CPU-specific virtualization, why would you want to emulate hardware when a pure-software interface can be achieved that makes the entire process thousands of times more efficient in terms of used CPU cycles and context switches?
Taken to its logical conclusion, this would seem to advocate a more container mindset with common kernel seems to be the path then and eschewing the virtualization paradigm in general...
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Not that there aren't still advantages to paravirtualization.
You can have a need for custom kernels that can't be containerized, but that you still want to operate efficiently. A fully paravirtualized kernel that can virtualize all of its x86 harware through direct hypervisor calls instead of actual hardware emulation actually has pretty low overhead.
Other than that, most benefits of (para)virtualized instances vs. containerized are just the serious drawbacks to current container technologies
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I provide 5 example hypervisors that can all do what Hyper-V cannot.
But, my statement is false and the problem is my ignorance, and not Hyper-V being intentionally broken?
What a thoroughly Microsofty response. I hope they pay you well for that.
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I provide 5 example hypervisors that can all do what Hyper-V cannot.
Well first off, you provided an unsubstantiated claim that I know to be a complete fabrication- but let's skip past that.
I too can provide 5 example 4-wheel vehicles that can't do what a truck can.
As I pointed out, you simply do not understand the market. You think hypervisors exist to emulate legacy hardware. That's not even what they do. You think the market for Hyper-V is you. It's not.
Your understanding of the topic is infantile enough that you simply don't matter into any calculations as far as to
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While it is a valid criticism, if you have older things on your network that are too old to have drivers for a current hypervisor, you probably also have a security timebomb waiting to go off with your no-patches-in-ages images. It's probably gogod to pause and ask how good is it really to be running end of life systems that participate on a network.
The other facet is that making Linux a valid dom0 might help them address those concerns. Every virtualization technology employes a 'fast path' where the guest
Undoing My Moderation (Score:1)
Several people I up-modded only show a single -1 Troll downmod. I know I didn't fat-finger it that many times. Hopefully posting un-does it.
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You know, I have some suspicion there is something shady going on with moderation recently. Has /. been bought by MS and nobody noticed?
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I don't know but my post it didn't undo it. It must have been someone else who modded all the anti-MS comments as troll and my up-mods never applied.
Read with Fallout Intro Voice (Score:1)
Microsoft, Microsoft never changes.
The Gates waged war to gather desktop dominance and wealth,
Ballmer, built an empire from his lust for throwing chairs and selling office,
Nadella, shaped a battered Microsoft into cloud super power,
But Microsoft never changes.
They destroy Nokia for their flawed Mobile strategy
And Microsoft never changes.