KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
Posted Mar 24, 2010 4:06 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)In reply to: KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management by bronson
Parent article: KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
Using the same file for different things is just a bad idea, since it just makes the file format more complex without a real benefit. Keeping different things separate is the POINT of a file system, and it would be stupid not to use it. And a hard disk image and a configuration file _are_ very different things.
Posted Mar 24, 2010 7:35 UTC (Wed)
by Los__D (guest, #15263)
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scp was an example, as in [insert favorite way to copy files between hosts]. Using it to pretend that bronson was contradicting himself is just lame.
Posted Mar 24, 2010 19:26 UTC (Wed)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (4 responses)
Double-clicking on a file in Dolphin/Thunar/Nautilus == desktop win.
"All your other points are made moot by the export appliance feature."
"And of course an exported VM can be imported on another machine."
"Using the same file for different things is just a bad idea."
Posted Mar 24, 2010 19:53 UTC (Wed)
by mjthayer (guest, #39183)
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Posted Mar 24, 2010 21:02 UTC (Wed)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
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The single unit is just a tarfile so performance would be an issue if one were to execute it directly. Still, I agree, as things mature this could become really useful.
Posted Mar 24, 2010 23:00 UTC (Wed)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link] (1 responses)
Furthermore, sending VMs via email etc. is just not a common use case. The common use case is that somebody sets up a machine once, say, to use some legacy windows app, and keeps using that as long as he needs it. Also, all the files are there in ~/.VirtualBox, nothing stops you from backing up that directory. It's not rocket science you know. But it seems you just want to whine about how bad the world is anyway, so i don't see a reason to waste further time with you...
Posted Mar 25, 2010 12:28 UTC (Thu)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
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Save As is not the same thing as Export.
Your email example is actually a good argument wrapped in boring vitriol. The difference is that email involves tens of thousands of messages, whereas desktop users only have a few VMs.
Sending MP3s via email was not a common use case 10 years ago, sending 50 MB PPTs and PDFs via email wasn't common 5 years ago... Limiting design to only serve the common use case would make the future a pretty boring place!
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
Double-clicking on some list in a custom GUI == desktop pain.
I covered this in my previous message. Just imagine if you were forced to store all your OpenOffice documents (or Emacs or Vim or whatever) in a custom database, and were forced to export every time you wanted to attach one to an email or back up to a NAS. As I said, it's is a step in the right direction, but it still sucks.
By "system" I meant VMWare, Xen, Virt-Manager, etc. Can any other virtualization system import a VirtualBox appliance?
Sometimes true, often false. Imagine if you had to store each layer in a separate Gimp file. Or had to keep mp3 data in one file and its ID3 tags in another. It would be horrible. Maybe read again the upsides and downsides I mentioned in the previous message?
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
>By "system" I meant VMWare, Xen, Virt-Manager, etc. Can any other virtualization system
>import a VirtualBox appliance?
VirtualBox exports in the Open Virtualisation Format [1], which is more or less an industry
standard format, and again more or less driven by VMWare. Moving OVF appliances between
different virtualisation systems is still a bit shaky but should soon be pretty simple.
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management
Your analogy to OpenOffice or vim is completely brain dead. If you want to send an OpenOffice document via email, you *do* have to export it. Yeah right, it's called File -> Save as..., i guess that's what makes it so much easier to use, right? Oh, and speaking of emails: email programs do just the same, they keep a database of your emails so you can read and answer them easily. Do you want to mess around with emails as files? I don't. My emails are buried somewhere deep within ~/.kde, and i don't give a rat's ass about the files they're stored in as long as it works. I guess most desktop users feel the same.
KVM, QEMU, and kernel project management