[sf-lug] Something to consider for hosting--RFC

[Rick Moen]

Quoting jim stockford (jim at well.com):

Just one comment, for starters:

> * XEN or UML linux (virtual OS instances) are good,
> but what's the learning curve?

There is none.  You don't need to know a blessed thing about how it's
done under the hood -- if all you want to do is be a customer.

If you use virtual-machine hosting, they've already done the job of
setting up the virtual machine (VM) for you.  You then get to have
(basically) any Linux distro of your choosing within the virtual
machine -- which you can then modify to suit yourself.

Well, that's the bare-bones theory.  In practice, they tell you "Look,
because you'll be able to reach the VM only via remote login, we have to 
install something into it.  We offer default installs of (say) current
Slackware, Debian, or CentOS.  Let us know which one you want."

Once you ssh into that default install using the initial default root
login password they tell you, you have complete run of the (virtual)
machine, and can rearrange it to suit yourself.  For example, if they
gave you CentOS and you decide you prefer Debian, you would SSH in, and
then do chroot installation
(http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DebianChrootInstall).

The _only_ functional difference between a {XEN|UML} virtual machine and
bare metal is that, in the former case, you are sharing machine CPU
power, I/O capacity, etc. with other people's VMs.  And it's about 85%
cheaper.