Hi, unless you have already used NetBSD as a workstation instead of a server, I would advice to try it first in this regard, and check whether it does support all your laptop's peripherals, if you are happy with various aspects -- and quirks -- that makes it a bit more painful than wide-spread GNU/Linux fully integrated desktop environments. E.g. suspend/resume, web browsing, and how your WM or DE is available on NetBSD and how it behaves.
Even its XEN usage as dom0 has some limitations, I am thinking of thin provisioning when using virtual disks as files: those cannot be sparse as vnconfig(8) does not support it. For integrating a XEN farm however, and without X, and eventually with iSCSI, well that would do. -- pierre-philipp On 07/18/2018 05:33 AM, Mayuresh wrote: > Please comment / advise on following requirement and what is the best way > to meet it: > > Hardware: Laptop, amd64, 4 core, 4GB for day to day personal + > professional use > > Requirement: Primary usage OS should be NetBSD. A certain use case at work > requires use of Windows XP based proprietary software that has to talk > with a certain USB device. > > Current setup: Linux as main OS and WinXP as a Virtualbox guest. > > Why change: 1. The setup is largely satisfactory, but occasionally printer > under cups settings on Linux mysteriously disappear requiring > reconfiguration from scratch. NetBSD setup without use of any intermediate > daemon would be more stable. 2. Would also like to try Xen in place of > VirtualBox. 3. Generally, would prefer NetBSD for most of the use cases. > Reasoning would be lengthy for this post. > > > Constraints: The license of proprietary software on WinXP is node locked. > Getting a new license is costly. > > > Option 1: NetBSD Dom0, WinXP DomU > > Cons 1: Restricted to single cpu on primary usage OS. But can live with > it. Can possibly use NetBSD as DomU as well. But see the point below which > is right now the main constraint. > > Cons 2: Converting the VirtualBox vdi disk to "raw" and using it as DomU > disk hasn't worked. It just leads to "blue screen of death". (A fresh > installation of WinXP works, but my constraint is to carry the node locked > software as explained above.) > > If there is a reliable way to port the vdi disk to xen, would stick to > this option as the remaining ones below involve at least one more OS to > break the jinx. > > > Option 2: NetBSD Dom0, Linux/FreeBSD DomU with VirtualBox based WinXP on > top of it > > Cons: Might work, but not sure whether multiple layers of virutalization > (WinXP on VirtualBox on DomU on Xen) is a good idea for stability and > performance. > > > Option 3: Linux/FreeBSD Dom0, NetBSD, WinXP DomUs > > As both Linux and FreeBSD have Dom0 ability as well as they both have > VirtualBox, hope to run existing WinXP DomU over them solving the > licensing issue. Will also get to use up to 3 cores for each of the DomUs. > > Cons 1: Booting Dom0 and booting DomU again to reach simple use case like > checking mail does not sound very appealing. > > Cons 2: Have to deal with total 3 OSes with nuances of each. > > > Option 4: Virtualbox on NetBSD over Linux emulation layer > > I do not have skills to try this. > Native Virtualbox on NetBSD - not sure when. > > > Thanks for bearing with a lengthy question. Looking forward to your advice > please. > > Mayuresh >
