[BLUG] operation: computer upgrade

Okay, I'm thinking about upgrading a computer I use as a swiss army
knife, and had a few questions about some things I was planning on doing
with it involving Xen. I know that there are some Xen experts here, I
hope you will be able to help me!

I want this machine to run Linux, but also run FreeBSD and Windows in
parallel via Xen. I intend to install a processor/motherboard supporting
either Pacifica or XT (I'll need to ensure that this can be enabled
within the bios as well).

Xen questions:

- What does the client/face of Xen look like? Could I run a Windows game
full screen at native speeds, and control the game via Synergy? Or, does
Xen only run within a window and expect that you will access this
environment via RDP/VNC/SSH?

- What sort of CPU resources does Xen consume with doing something
intense such as running a game? Would the stuff going on in the
background interfere with game play or vice versa?

- What sort of interface is there for toggling between virtualized
environments, other than some sort of VNC/SSH type thing? Like I've
explained above, I'll need direct access to Windows for game playing,
although FreeBSD can be accessed via SSH/VNC

- How stable is the sort of setup I'm describing? Is it safe to count on
this functionality, or am I really pushing the envelope here?

- What sort of partition scheme might be best for this sort of thing? If
possible, I like the sound of growable disk images for FreeBSD and Windows.

For those that care, this machine will be used to do the following:

- Development FreeBSD machine

- print server (via Linux)

- file/backup server (via Linux, I may be asking questions about
migrating my data from a UFS to ext3 partition)

- MythTV server (running under Linux)

- Test web/email/database/etc. server running under FreeBSD

- Windows via Xen for games and testing stuff in IE

- Possibly security camera stuff

- iTunes server (daapd)

- Two drives mirrored via software RAID-1, another scratch drive for
non-essential data

--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org
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