[mythtv-users] OT: Virtualization

[Raymond Wagner]

On 7/4/2013 3:35 PM, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> On 13-07-04 03:23 PM, Raymond Wagner wrote:
>>
>> I can easily spawn a new jail (paravirtualization) with its own
>> filesystem and IP address to work on development. I actually do have
>> several of these set up for use with various branches. Since all I'm
>> doing is running MythTV in an isolated memory space, it takes about two
>> seconds to start one up. My master backend sits in another jail, and
>> should the need arise, I can shut it down, roll back to a previous
>> snapshot, and bring it back up, all in about ten seconds.
>>
>> There is merit to isolation. There is merit to consolidation. However
>> both of these can be accomplished without a full virtual machine.
>
> Because (unless there are some generally accepted tools for doing so)
> you (as do I, and others, but not everyone) know how to spin up a chroot
> with all of the properly mounted virtual filesystems, etc.  Doing this
> is not as straightforward to the linux newbie as installing from media
> into a completely virtualized version of "the computer" they are used to
> dealing with normally.
>
> Not that I'm advocating the (ab)use of VMs where chroots are sufficient.
>   I'm just saying they are not as straightforward as VMs.

While I agree with you, I dare say running a bunch of virtual machines 
under a Type 1 hypervisor like ESXi is easily as advanced a concept as 
learning to use chroot and similar. It's quite a bit beyond the 
experimenting stage with running a couple VMs on your host desktop, as 
it means you've decided to fully commit to it.