A new release of VMKnoppix – a Linux distro bundled with most of the existing open-source virtualization solutions, has just seen the light – VMKnoppix 5.3.1live CD is ready for download.
What is VMKnoppix?
VMKnoppix is a Linux live CD based on Knoppix distro, which ships with all the well-known virtualization solutions: Xen, KVM, VirtualBox, QEMU and KQEMU, UserModeLinux.
Formely known as Xenoppix, this distro is fairly new – I think the first build of VMKnoppix was released back in March 2008.
The advantages of using VMKnoppix are obvious:
- it's a live CD distribution, which means you don't have to install/reinstall the OS on your hard drive just because you want to try out some virtualization technology
- most of virtualization solutions as part of the distribution – you don't have to search for their latest versions, you don't need to compile anything – all the tools are ready for immediate use
- great virtualization playground – you're unlikely to find something as suitable and as useful for your virtualization experiments
How to use VMKnoppix
First of all, you'll need to download the latest build (it's an ISO image) and burn it on a CD. When you boot from the CD, the menu will give you options to pick what kind of kernel you're interested to boot – for example, you can boot a standard Knoppix kernel or the one with Xen support.
The VMKnoppix PDF manual has all the information you'll need to get started.
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