Google Code-in 2010 Organization Haiku Task Research the various virtualization programs and recommend settings to get Haiku to run on them.

Research the various virtualization programs and recommend settings to get Haiku to run on them.

completed by: hiromu1996

mentors: Richard Nyhus

Research different (hardware) virtualisation programs and write a report on their compatibility with the Haiku operating system.

In this task you will be required to fully comprehend the use and purpose of (hardware) virtualisation software. You will also be learning about the many different virtualisation solutions such Vmware player, Virtualbox, Xen, Windows Virtual PC, Bochs and many other open source and free to use virtualisation software.

However your key research will focus mainly on the Vmware player and Virtualbox software solutions, as these are the solutions primarily used by the core developers and the Haiku community.

There are 3 separate goals to accomplish in this task:

For each virtualisation solution, briefly describe what steps someone should take to get Haiku running in the Virtualisation program. What settings do you recommend? What works and what does not work in Haiku (sound, network and USB)? Did you experience any other issues? Research what problems other people face. Are there any workarounds to these problems?
The Haiku project publishes a VMware image of a limited size, this can be used in both VMware player and Virtualbox. However its limited size is too small for most people. Research how to install Haiku onto a newer and larger virtual-disk image, briefly describe what steps someone should take to do this.
Research the state of Vmware and Virtualbox Add-ons in haiku, what it would take to get them fully functioning? What features would possibly be available with each of these two virtual add-ons once ported?

You solutions and suggestions here will be used by another two tasks to create an end user guide to using Haiku with either the Vmware player or Virtualbox software solutions. This is something you could look at working on afterwards. This report also be used to inform the core developers of the compatibility of popular virtualisation programs with Haiku.

Benefits:

Virtualisation software allows individuals to install and trial the Haiku operating system without actually installing it on real physical hardware. This allows them to test experimental software without interfering with other software on their computer. They can then report problems and issues from the convenience of another operating system. Virtualisation software is the primary means of how people try Haiku for the first time, therefore it is important that they have a guide to help them when they use this software.

Requirements:

You will need a understanding of English that allows you to understand some more technical language that might be used. You will also need a computer that can handle these virtualisation programs, with enough hard drive space to hold the needed programs and enough ram to have running two operating systems (one as guest and one as host). It is also important that your ISP’s broadband plan will allow you to download the virtualisation programs as needed and a 145mb VMware image of Haiku.

Extra:

If you are more adventurous you could rather write it as an university style research project with an introduction, conclusion and citation using the Harvard style.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-V

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Virtual_PC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_Player

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_Workstation