Josef “Jeff” Sipek

8 Comments »

1. How do I get started using VM? I visited the main VMware site, and I see evaluations and downloads, and well, I have information overload. Whats your idea for the best way to start learning about vm for somebody with a short attention span like me?

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

2. z/VM != VMware. They're not even made by the same company (IBM vs. VMware). Long story short, you'd have to buy a mainframe to get your own copy of z/VM. If you want to play with it (as a user), you have find someone who has a mainframe. VMware has a free download called VMware Server. It's OK, but it's nowhere near as awesome as z/VM.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

3. Nate, I think you answered your own question. It seems you are looking to learn about virtualization, but acknowledge your greatest obstacle is an attention span deficiency. The best way to fix this problem is to work relentlessly at something. Skill and talent is sometimes natural, but 99.9% of the time it's built up through concentration and dedication. Sometimes it is not about doing what's "fun", but simply solving the problem, even if it will take forever. Those with short attention spans usually behave flippantly for various reasons, but the #1 killer is the attitude that "it can always be done/solved/fixed later". I think the most basic knowledge you need to start playing with virtualization is roughly knowing how the bootloader works, so that you can configure grub/lilo/whatever. Learn your favorite bootloader inside and out, and progress from there by tinkering with the actual VM.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

4. As a life-long amateur musician I understand John's point about talent vs. dedication and study well enough. My trouble is that there is only a limited amount of time in every day and being cursed as I am with interest in so many different things - to focus on one to exclusion of all the others seems criminal. I guess what I'm looking for is the easiest way to begin to investigate virualization to see if it might provide any real-world benefits for me. I appreciate the hint about the importance of the boot loader (I have been using grub of late), but I guess I still need to know what software to start with. To play around I will have access only to x86 based hardware that can run Linux. Being completely ignorant about virualization, I didn't realize that z/VM was a mainframe only product. But now, (curse my metal body!) I'm also confused about what exactly you mean by mainframe. I have several Xeon based IBM servers, but I suppose those are not "mainframes" in the technical sense. What machines do you run v/VM on so I can look up the specs and read about that hardware?

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

5. Never mind on the hardware question - I just found your zArchitecture slides and am educating myself.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

6. I know of the feeling of having too many interestest far too well. I'd just say, pick something, stick with it, and if it starts boring you, try something else. And don't feel bad about it - at the very least, you know that you're not really interested in the thing :) Anyway, mainframes...yeah, z/VM is mainframe only. You got a bunch of xSeries servers, only the System z boxes that IBM sells are considered mainframes. They architecture is completely different (and far, far more interesting if you ask me). I don't have any myself (I couldn't paying the electricity bill, not to mention the hardware itself); recently I got an account on someone else's mainframe (it's a z800). Here are the specs for the latest incarnation of the hardware. It looks deceivingly small, but they are wonderful machines that are meant to last. Few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at LILUG Dev-SIG, about the architecture - if you are interested, I have the slides. Most of my playing around so far (I only got the account yesterday), has been on an emulator of a System z. The OS I'm writing is for this kind of hardware, and it's supposed to be hypervisor. If you want real world benefits, I'd say Xen or VMware server are your best bet.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

7. Thanks for the tips, Jeff! ...and I see what you mean - a low end z9 mainframe is $100,000! I think I need something a tad more practical, but man, it would be cool to play with.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

8. That's $100k for the "CPU" and "RAM" - no disks, no IO devices :) Hercules is a really nice emulator that supports all that the most fully loaded of z9 has (minus few things that require special IBM firmware). I'm playing with the idea of doing a LILUG talk about "gettting set up with your own, personal mainframe" - it'd be a Debian on Hercules type thing. Pretty much a walk through my HOWTO as well as a whole bunch additional information about what's what.

   Comment by [unknown] — January 1, 1970 @ 00:00

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