On Sat, 8 Aug 2009 15:18:12 -0400 Brian McLinden <brian.mclinden@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm thinking about buying their new Apollo rig, http://www.ixsystems.com/apollo
and ask them to install some kind of virtual machine software on top of FreeBSD (or PC-BSD) so that I can learn various linux distros running as clients.
To add on the previous reply: 1.) FreeBSD is great and I use it in many places, but their current offerings for hosting VMs are a little sparse. QEMU/KQEMU and older VMware versions work, but not much more. 8-CURRENT will run reliably as a domU in Xen, though, so progress is coming. Linux offers you VMware, Xen, KVM, VirtualBox, etc. 2.) You may want to consider saving some money and putting your own system together. They're pretty clearly reselling standard parts (the case is an Antec Sonata III with included 500W power supply, for instance), and unless you *really* need a Core i7 right now, there are a lot of bargains now on high end Core2 Quads and DDRII memory that will last you for a while. Brian Conway