Open Source Virtualization in Ubuntu Hardy (First Impressions)

So Open Source Virtualiztion in Ubuntu hasn't been a smooth ride. The linux-virtual and linux-xen kernels panic my T-61 due to what appear to be SATA and USB issues, respectively, but KVM seems to be working a little better (you need to apt virt-manager, kvm, libvirt-bin, and probably a few others) and actually surprisingly snappy.

Virtual Manager is now included and works reasonably well (if run as root, there are some permission issues) to provide VMWare-console like experience. I was able to boot (from the .iso) a Debian Etch install but I aborted due to hda (DSC Timeouts) but Hardy Server worked amazing well:

root@ubuntu:~# uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.24-16-server #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 13:58:00 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
root@ubuntu:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 2
model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version 0.9.1
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 1994.872
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 up pni
bogomips : 4007.02
clflush size : 64

Networking "just worked" a pleasant suprise thinking about what a pain it used to be back in the day with User Mode Linux. You'll also note that you connect into the console via VNC, which was nice.

Update
So Hardy seems to be the anomaly. OpenBSD 4.2 failed to install, Ubuntu 7.10 failed to boot the CD. Also Virtual Manager frequently wouldn't start up or shutdown VM's.

So all in all a pretty dismal picture.