The use of VMs in experimentation schenarios (Was: Re: Intended question - was...)

From	Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.user
Subject	The use of VMs in experimentation schenarios (Was: Re: Intended question - was...)
Date	2019-06-17 23:00 +0200
Message-ID	<ya6To-4dA-11@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
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David Wright writes:

> On Sun 16 Jun 2019 at 14:17:21 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> > On 06/16/2019 11:03 AM, David Wright wrote:
> > > On Sat 15 Jun 2019 at 08:15:24 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> > > > On 06/14/2019 06:10 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:

[...]

> > > >       My solution is install Grub only on the initial install and NO
> > > >       boot loader on subsequent install. After completing one (or more)
> > > >       additional installs, I boot the first install and run update-grub.
> > > >
> > > > VM's had been suggested ;}
> > >
> > > What for; to avoid having to type <down><down><down><return> when booting?
> >
> > No
>
> Then what *would* be the benefit of a VM? Why did you bring it up
> in this thread?
>
> > require my failures to be deterministic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >
> > VM's are intrinsically unknown quantities.

[...]

Just a few benefits of VMs I can think of here:

 * Do multiple installs simulateneously.

 * Use the same machine to read manuals, mailing list or whatever
   while at the same time running an install.

 * No need to worry about the other installations in terms of
   (1) storage management: all installations get their own individual
   partition table inside an image file and
   (2) bootloader management: all installations see only their own
   data, there is no unwanted interaction between any of the installations.

 * Historically, VMs were sometimes emulated and thus slower than operating
   a system "bare-metal". On my systems, installations in VMs are often
   faster than installations on the machine directly because they can make
   use of caching (e.g. for installation media which need not be provided as
   physical media but can be image files as well), libvirt has its own DHCP
   to provide IP addresses quickly etc. such that systems inside it respond
   faster to certain installation tasks like getting an IP address over DHCP.

 * Snapshots can be used to save and revert any state of a VM which is
   perfectly well-suited for doing experiments and reverting to a
   "known good" state later if only to refine the experiment and run
   it again. This may save the time of doing an installation repeatedly
   in some cases.

 * VM management software allows all VMs to be named individually which
   may be an improvement over a lot of similar bootloader entries.

 * Deleting installations is very easy and does in no way interact with
   other existing installations (no need to update bootloader entries).
   Also, followup installations in VMs are not restricted by the partition
   layout from previous installations but each installation is only limited
   by amount of available disk space.

 * Different exclusive technology like partitioning schemes (GPT/MBR) or
   LVM may be used on some and not necessarily all of the installations
   without issues. In case of physical installations, experimenting with
   GPT+MBR at the same time is very difficult or requires multiple hard drives.

Other ideas
 * https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reasons-start-using-virtual-machine/
 * https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-benefits-of-VM-Virtual-Machines

Btw. at least one of the links recommends VirtualBox. I would rather prefer
Virt-Manager + KVM (see
https://masysma.lima-city.de/37/how_to_transition_from_virtualbox_to_kvm.xhtml
for reasons).

HTH
Linux-Fan

Thread

Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-14 13:20 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file john doe <johndoe65534@mail.com> - 2019-06-14 13:30 +0200
    Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-14 13:50 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> - 2019-06-14 13:30 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Erik Christiansen <dvalin@internode.on.net> - 2019-06-14 13:30 +0200
    Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-14 14:00 +0200
      Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-06-14 19:50 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> - 2019-06-14 13:30 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2019-06-14 14:40 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Elimar Riesebieter <riesebie@lxtec.de> - 2019-06-14 18:10 +0200
  Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2019-06-14 20:20 +0200
  Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration"  {wrong word?} file} Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-15 15:20 +0200
    Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-06-15 16:30 +0200
      Re: Intended question Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2019-06-15 21:20 +0200
        Re: Intended question Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-06-15 21:30 +0200
      Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-15 21:30 +0200
    Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-06-16 18:10 +0200
      Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-16 21:20 +0200
        Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} john doe <johndoe65534@mail.com> - 2019-06-16 21:40 +0200
        Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2019-06-17 00:30 +0200
        Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-06-17 04:10 +0200
          The use of VMs in experimentation schenarios (Was: Re: Intended          question - was...) Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2019-06-17 23:00 +0200
            Re: The use of VMs in experimentation schenarios (Was: Re: Intended  question - was...) Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2019-06-17 23:10 +0200
          Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2019-06-17 23:50 +0200
        Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2019-06-17 05:00 +0200
          Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-06-17 20:40 +0200
          Re: Intended question - was {Re: Forgot name of Debian  "configuration" {wrong word?} file} David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-06-18 18:20 +0200
            Re: Intended question Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-06-20 20:10 +0200
              Re: Intended question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-06-21 04:40 +0200
  Bonus answers - was [Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong  word?} file] Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-15 15:40 +0200
    Re: Bonus answers - was [Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration"  {wrong word?} file] songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2019-06-15 22:50 +0200
      Re: Bonus answers - was [Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration"  {wrong word?} file] Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-06-16 11:50 +0200
    Re: Bonus answers - was [Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file] Jonas Smedegaard <jonas@jones.dk> - 2019-06-16 13:30 +0200
    Re: Bonus answers - was [Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration"  {wrong word?} file] Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2019-06-17 15:20 +0200

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