This is the way DISCO works.  Its benefit is that virtualised code
*could* run faster, the disadvantage is that there is no "host" so
all OSes need to be virtualised (ie, compare plex86-os to
plex86-on-linux, in the latter case virtualised (e.g. windows)
apps may run slower than in the former case, but linux apps will
run a lot faster.)

However, I'm of the opinion that one method doesn't exclude the
other.  Most of the work involved in making a plex86 OS is
simply writing a new plaform file, just like porting it to
a different platform, except that you'd not be porting to a
different OS but to something like the Flux OSKit.
Shouldn't be all that difficult (feel like doing some hacking? ;)

Off to Linux Kongress tomorrow, ttya all next week.

-- Ramon

X-Odus wrote:
> 
> I was playing with VMWare and Plex86 (what would work at least) the
> other day.  I got to thinking a lot about why they run slower than a
> native OS.  It is because they have to go through another Operating
> system to get to the hard ware.  Why Run one OS just to run another.
> Well, what if Plex86 _WAS_ the OS.  A small one, that just creates VMs
> to run other operating systems.  Using CTRL + SHIFT + (F1-F12) to switch
> between VMs.  If the OS was optimized for Running Other OS's, than the
> speed would increase dramatically.
> 
> The VMOS could be based of Linux or some other Unix system.  Using the
> Ext2 partition to manage configuration, keeping the file system
> structure.  This way the VMs could be configured to use a file (ex:
> /home/user/hd.img) or an actually device (ex: /dev/hda) for disk I/O.
> 
> Memory management and resource sharing should be no different than the
> Current way that Plex86 is handling it.
> 
> What is everyone elses thoughts or comments on the topic?
> 
> --Don Becker

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