OS2 World.Com reports about Serenity Systems International (SSI)and its new virtual machine product family, Serenity Virtual Station(tm) (SVISTA). The SVISTA(tm) products will provide the broadest support for operating systems in the industry. “Our support for Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and IBM OS/2 as hosting platforms demonstrates that accomplishing this objective is in sight,” according to Bob St.John, Director of Business Development for SSI. He continued, “We expect to conclude our Early Support Program and release the retail product in early 2Q04. We are prepared to support the product in service engagements right now.“
New Virtual Machine Application Launched
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These are the Requrirements : http://www.serenityvirtual.com/prod_info.php?url=content/requiremen…
Uh, it supports the i86, the i86 and the i86.
Where it achieves platform neutrality today ?
Give me a glue, pls.
cheers,
frank
Of course and it only supports x86, what else an x86 emulator would support?
Emulating other cpus is a whole new application, it ain’t a plugin module!
As far as I know from the WarpWeekend it won’t be free. But it will be quite affordable and offered in a pack with support for all supported platforms.
As far as I recall that is
.
The software look almost identical to TwoOSTwo.
compare
http://www.serenityvirtual.com/gallery/gal/Linux_Host/009_SVISTARea…
to
http://www.parallels.ru/pics/2os2_5.jpg
Yes, they have obviously OEM’ed the TwoOSTwo solution and they re-marketing it.
From what I understand the poor performace of I86 design, is what leads to the problem. I86 can not be made to act like a PowerPC or Alpha, because the performace bottleneck is way to high. It can be done you just won’t be able to run anything on it. a I86 to I86 will slow down performace just not by a signigant amount.
Unlike a Powerpc chip which can simulate a i86 chip compartively well, though still for good to better performace, still needs enhancemnet.
Does anyone know how fast this runs? Better or worse than VMWare? VMWare runs pretty darn fast for me (version 4.0.5), as long as you disable the RTC and CD-ROM drive (which, for some reason, cause hic-cups) and have VMWare tools installed on the Windows guest.
What *are* you talking about? x86 chips have been really fast for the better part of a decade now. The only thing that can beat a high-end P4 or Opteron in integer code (the type that emulation mostly uses) is a Power4. Even Alphas, G5s, and UltraSPARCs can’t keep up.
2os2 evaulation dowloads available here (Linux betas at bottom):
http://www.parallels.ru/2os2.shtml
Serenity just repacakges OS/2 as ECS. I’m not surprised they do the same with this SVISTA thing.
Actually, he’s correct. There are, for instance, no PowerPC emulators for x86. People have tried, but it’s just not possible to do efficiently. I believe it’s basically a risk versus CISC problem. A RISC chip just has to break down complicated CISC instructions into its own code, whereas a CISC chip would have to intelligently assemble smaller RISC instructions into its more complicated language. So basically the translation process is more expensive from RISC->CISC.
actually that used to be true (still is a valid point about not being able to do efficiently).. but no longer true that “there are no PowerPC emulators for x86”
http://www.emaculation.com/sheepshaver.php
http://www.dolphin-emu.com/index.php
@Frank
Windows is a platform. OS/2 is a platform. Linux is a platform. When people talk of cross-platform applications it means running on different operating systems. What you meant was architecture.
And with this Virtual Machine Application, all platforms can be running at the same time. You can dabble in WinWord and then get back to custom made applications in OS/2 without having to reboot. So the platform neutrality claim is true.
Alright, so there’s one, that was just created recently. And it emulates a 604. Do you know how ancient that is? I used to have a PowerBook with a 604 processor before OS X came out, and thought it was slow as tar then. I have to say that I think that only further illustrates how expensive the conversion is.
And I don’t know what your second link is about. It appears to be an emulator for a console system.
“What *are* you talking about?”
I could be off but I think the person’s point was that because the x86 pipeline runs so deep, VMs tend to cause the pipeline to stall alot more in comparison to other chips.
With IBM Global Services taking a leading role in support for eComStation, this cannot bode well for Linux. This really adds weight to my view that IBM, Microsoft and SCO are working in unison to destroy Linux.
And its great to see some of the programmers from Russia getting compensated for their excellent work on OS/2.
With IBM Global Services taking a leading role in support for eComStation, this cannot bode well for Linux. This really adds weight to my view that IBM, Microsoft and SCO are working in unison to destroy Linux.
What the HELL are you talking about? IBM trying to destroy Linux? Yeah dumping billions of dollars and porting over some of your crown jewels (think JFS and DB/2) is what I’d call destroying a platform.
The thing is, IBM is a hardware and services company (mostly a services company). The OS doesn’t matter to IBM. In fact, Linux is a godsend because IBM can finally slowly kill off their proprietary OSes and cut down on a major cost for their mainframe and server platforms. Additionally, since Linux is relatively new in the enterprise sphere, there is not a lot of Linux expertise out there at the companies that tend to work closely with IBM. This means they have to contract out more for support than before, at least until they bring their own internal IT departments up to speed.
In summary, your statement is freaking rediculous, what would IBM honestly gain by killing Linux? More importantly, what real evidence do you have that they are “working with Microsoft and SCO to destroy Linux”?
… as long as there’s a competition in this area. We need a competitor to VMWare (and hopefully it can bring/keep the price low). A lot of people have grown dependent on VMWare because Microsoft will not be bringing VirtualPC to Linux/FreeBSD and there’s currently no viable open source/free alternative (yes, there’s Bochs and Plex86, but no, they’re not in the same league).
“What *are* you talking about? x86 chips have been really fast for the better part of a decade now. The only thing that can beat a high-end P4 or Opteron in integer code (the type that emulation mostly uses) is a Power4. Even Alphas, G5s, and UltraSPARCs can’t keep up.”
Actually, I use all +mips except the Power4. They all have they’re strong points. I don’t think x86 is anywhere near the “Do all & end all” just because your system runs fast.
The reason I keep and maintain all the systems I do is because I have not yet found any one that will do it all, so I use each for it’s best.
This is a virtualize product, like VMWare. Emulator software runs an interpreter that analyzes each instruction and determines the effective new state of the virtual machine at each step. An emulator can emulate any processor or environment, but because the system is entirely interpreted, it runs with a very large performance cost. A virtualizer lets the processor create new process, just like running another application in the host OS. Traditionally this has not worked with attempting to run another OS because the OS would quickly request exclusive protected mode access for itself so that it can start multitasking itself. When the process did so, a trap would be thrown, and the host OS would kill the process. Virtualizer products hook traps on those special instructions and then interpret (like an emulator) the appropriate actions and modify the running process. To the OS running in the virtualizer, it appears as if the instructions were legal. The virtualizer then returns control back to the process. Net result is that the only time emulation is done is for OS-level restricted instructions. Virtualizers rely on the CPU to do the mainstay of executing instructions normally, so they cannot be used to emulate another platform.
Bel, the mostly sane..
This is based on OS/2? You have to purchase their other product to join the Beta? Me thinks no.
– A