I decided to play around with Xen a bit, just to see how Xen works as opposed to VMWare's virtualization products.

Now you have to understand that I am not a Linux expert. In fact, my knowledge of Linux is limited, to say the least.  Luckily, there are quite a lot of docs out there that describe what you have to do (as always).

First, I installed a Linux distro in VMWare Workstation 5.5. I used Ubuntu because it is very easy to work with. It is a bit of a hassle to get the VMWare Tools to work. To help, you can use the information in this document.

You can find more information about how to install Xen in this document at writely.com. By the way, writely.com is a great way to write documents and collaborate on documents using just a web browser.

In the installation document, you will find some information about ttylinux as a vm.

Next, I decided to create another vm (or domu in Xen speak) with Debian. There is another document on writely.com with details about that.

Although it is fun to play around with this stuff, I must say that Xen does not have what it takes yet to beat VMWare in the virtualization playing field. For example, although VMWare ESX management is also based on Linux, the web interface and their VirtualCenter product make it very easy to manage. And that is my biggest negative point about Xen: it's very hard to manage and the documentation is scarce to say the least. The documentation you do find is usually rather cryptic.

Documents about Xen on writely.com:

- Installing Xen
- Installing Debian as a vm

Have fun trying it out yourself!