From owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 23 06:15:36 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E30AA106566C for ; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:15:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tedm@mittelstaedt.us) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1A68B8FC1A for ; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:15:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.202] (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id o6N6FVuO028731 for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:15:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@mittelstaedt.us) Message-ID: <4C493384.5050107@mittelstaedt.us> Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:15:32 -0700 From: Ted Mittelstaedt User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100711 Thunderbird/3.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.2 (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]); Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:15:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: VirtualBox for FreeBSD in an Intel Atom processor X-BeenThere: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Development of Emulators of other operating systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:15:37 -0000 On 7/22/2010 3:24 AM, Harald Servat wrote: > Hello list, > > I'm planning to buy an Intel Atom based computer and install FreeBSD > (probably 8.1) on it, and II was wondering which are my options to run > VirtualBox. > > First of all, recent Intel Atom processors do not support Intel VT-x. > According on the section of Troubleshooting of [1] it seems that VT-x is no > needed, but according to [2] it seems that VT-x is needed for 64 bit guest. > If this is correct, does it mean that in I'd be only able to install 32 bits > guests in that machine? Even if I install FreeBSD-amd64? > > Another topic would be responsiveness, I know that Atom are not speedy, > but has anyone used it to virtualize another Linux (with or without X11) and > Windows (XP or 7)? > > Thank you very much! > > [1]http://wiki.freebsd.org/VirtualBox > [2] http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#intro-64bitguests About 3 months ago I picked up from Fry's Electronics a brand new motherboard + processor for about $50. The CPU is a 2.5Ghz Intel Celeron E3300. I put a spare 1GB stick of ram in it I had lying around. The board itself is a clone BTC I think. I split the disk into a 1GB Windows XP partition and FreeBSD 8 for the rest of it. This runs a session of XP in a VirtualBox that is literally just as fast as XP running natively on the same box. You cannot tell the difference. In fact, in some cases I think the XP session under virtualization runs -faster-. I use the XP session to run Vsphere Client since I manage some ESXi servers. I personally think you could do better than the Atom. Ted