VIRTUES OF THE VIRTUAL

In the old days, an operating system was somehow monogamously tied to the hardware. Aside from a few experts and visionaries, no one even considered the possibility of many systems sharing the same iron simultaneously. And no one lost any sleep worrying about the option of one operating system running on a different operating system. In today’s virtual world, however, your applications may not ever know where the hardware stops and where the software begins. Virtualization provides several benefits for the Linux user: stability, manageability, security, and even nostalgia. This month, we take close look at some Linux virtualization options.