On Mon, 06 Nov 2017 20:21:28 -0500, Josh Branning wrote: > On 07/11/17 01:19, Luke Shumaker wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > In the original email, I had said that I planned on using Xen on the > > build server. I suppose I should ask though: Does anyone have a > > strong opinion on KVM vs Xen? > > > > (Just waiting on the the mobo now. Also, my RAM seller had > > mis-counted his inventory, and so I'm only getting 16GB in this > > order). > > > > KVM, built into kernel. Last time I checked Xen required lots of > dependencies.
KVM is a mechanism built into the kernel, but you still need external (userspace) programs to do everything but CPU virtualization; which probably means QEMU. The dependency lists of QEMU and Xen aren't that different. (NB: much Xen's para-virtualized device code comes from QEMU) > Other question to consider is the overhead added as it's a build > server, but if it's para-visualization shouldn't be so much of a > problem. Both KVM and Xen will be using HVM for CPU virtualization these days (well, KVM always used HVM; Xen used to use para-virtualization for CPU though); the real overhead will be with devices. Both KVM/QEMU and Xen should be using virtio (para-virtualization) for most devices. I don't know what KVM/QEMU's para-virtualized devices story is like these days. One thing to note, while KVM can hot-plug add more CPUs, Xen has support for hot-plugging and unplugging them. I said that 16 of the CPU cores would be dedicated to the build server VM, but Xen would give the possiblity to rig up a system to allow "ballooning" the number of cores up to 31 (I'd keep one reserved for dom0) if other VMs are inactive. -- Happy hacking, ~ Luke Shumaker _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list Dev@lists.parabola.nu https://lists.parabola.nu/mailman/listinfo/dev